spring-projects / spring-projects/spring-security

An invalid remember-me cookie should throw a RememberMeAuthenticationException

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status: waiting-for-triage
Dominant language
Java
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Description

Summary

If an invalid remember-me token is provided by a counterfeit cookie, an IllegalArgumentException is thrown:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: URLDecoder: Illegal hex characters in escape (%) pattern - Error at index 1 in: "3J"
	at java.base/java.net.URLDecoder.decode(URLDecoder.java:232) ~[na:na]
	at java.base/java.net.URLDecoder.decode(URLDecoder.java:142) ~[na:na]
	at org.springframework.security.web.authentication.rememberme.AbstractRememberMeServices.decodeCookie(AbstractRememberMeServices.java:242) ~[spring-security-web-5.1.5.RELEASE.jar:5.1.5.RELEASE]
	at org.springframework.security.web.authentication.rememberme.AbstractRememberMeServices.autoLogin(AbstractRememberMeServices.java:135) ~[spring-security-web-5.1.5.RELEASE.jar:5.1.5.RELEASE]
	at org.springframework.security.web.authentication.rememberme.RememberMeAuthenticationFilter.doFilter(RememberMeAuthenticationFilter.java:98) ~[spring-security-web-5.1.5.RELEASE.jar:5.1.5.RELEASE]
	
Expected Behavior

A RememberMeAuthenticationException is thrown.

Version

spring-security-web-5.1.5.RELEASE.jar:5.1.5.RELEASE

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start in org.springframework.security.web.authentication.rememberme.AbstractRememberMeServices, particularly decodeCookie and its caller autoLogin, following the stack trace from the invalid cookie. Reproduce the malformed token and verify that the observed IllegalArgumentException is replaced by the expected RememberMeAuthenticationException.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java, spring
Domain
authentication, security
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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