this pr is in response to https://words.filippo.io/compromise-survey/.
ohemorange and i read this late on a friday to (speaking for myself at
least) much panic as it has some very strong words to say about the
github actions trigger pull_request_target which we use. looking into
the issue more, i also found that the popular static analysis tool
[zizmor](https://github.com/zizmorcore/zizmor) flags any github actions
workflow that uses the pull_request_target trigger with the message:
```
error[dangerous-triggers]: use of fundamentally insecure workflow trigger
pull_request_target is almost always used insecurely
```
this only added to my concern
the general problem with pull_request_target is that it runs with
additional privileges (e.g. potential write access, access to secrets)
in an environment containing values that can be set by an attacker.
these values include things such as references to the arbitrary code
contained in the triggering pr and pr titles which have been used to
perform shell injection attacks. not carefully treating these values
like the untrusted data it is while executing code in the privileged
environment given to pull_request_target has resulted in many supply
chain attacks
that's not to say that pull_request_target CAN'T be used securely.
zizmor even has [an
issue](https://github.com/zizmorcore/zizmor/issues/1168) brainstorming
how to not warn about all uses of the trigger as some are clearly fine
and the only way to accomplish what the user wants. i'm going to argue
that our uses of the trigger are ok
looking through the links provided by filippo's blog and [zizmor's
docs](https://docs.zizmor.sh/audits/#dangerous-triggers), i think we can
break down attacks used against pull_request_target into roughly 2
categories:
1. shell injection: "Nx S1ingularity" and "Ultralytics" from filippo's
blog
2. checking out and running a PR's code: "Kong Ingress Controller" and
"Rspack" from filippo's blog and https://ptrpa.ws/nixpkgs-actions-abuse
from zizmor docs
i think none of our pull_request_target workflows have these problems.
none of them use a shell (the [zizmor
issue](https://github.com/zizmorcore/zizmor/issues/1168) i linked
earlier suggests that any pull_request_target workflow that uses a run
block should always be flagged as insecure). instead, our workflows just
call action-mattermost-notify which can be [pretty easily
audited](https://github.com/mattermost/action-mattermost-notify/blob/2.0.0/src/main.js)
(as all the other files in the repo are boilerplate). passing possible
attacker controlled values directly to an action written in another
language is one of the approaches for mitigating script injection
[recommended by
github](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/security/secure-use#use-an-action-instead-of-an-inline-script).
our workflows also do not check out the triggering pr's code
despite all that, i took this opportunity to cleanup and harden things a
bit. i reduced the permissions for each workflow and confirmed they each
still work on my fork. i also pinned the mattermost action to an exact
version and added some inline documentation
with these changes, our github workflows trigger few to no
warnings/errors when checked with zizmor,
[octoscan](https://github.com/synacktiv/octoscan), and [openssf
scorecard](https://github.com/ossf/scorecard)
if this pr is approved, i'll make similar changes to our josepy repo
We're a few years behind the curve on this one, but using "master" as a
programming term is a callous practice that explicitly uses the
historical institution of slavery as a cheap, racist metaphor. Switch to
using "main", as it's the new default in git and GitHub.
