Security Bulletins on Tailscale

TS-2025-001

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Potential for continued admin console access past inactivity timeout

What happened?

The admin console session timeout works by recording tailnet-specific activity timestamps on login and from browser requests triggered by user activity. Previously the admin console also erroneously considered the act of switching between multiple tailnets to be a login and recorded a fresh timestamp for the user in the destination tailnet while switching.

For tailnets whose users were also members of other tailnets with less strict inactivity timeouts, these users may have been able to continue their access to the admin console for longer than expected if they switched between tailnets and did not time out of the less restrictive tailnet.

The issue was present since inactivity timeout was initially released in August 2024, and was fixed in production on March 7th, 2025. A user who switches to a tailnet in which their session has already expired will be logged out and redirected to the login page.

Who was affected?

Tailnets with admin console session timeout configurations and users who are members of other tailnets with less strict session timeout configurations.

What was the impact?

Users of tailnets with strict admin console session timeouts may have been able to continue their access to the admin console past expected timeouts by switching to and from other tailnets in the admin console whose console configurations were less strict.

What do I need to do?

No action is required.

TS-2024-013

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Potential for Tailscale SSH recording failures

What happened?

Tailscale SSH recording deployments that enforce SSH recording using enforceRecorder could fail to record session activity in several situations.

Failure to write to the storage backend

If tsrecorder instances were unable to write to their configured storage, SSH sessions would be allowed to execute for a few seconds (typically under one or two) while the first output bytes failed to write.

A tsrecorder instance can fail to write to its configured storage for many reasons, including:

Misconfigured IAM permissions when using S3 for storage.
Misconfigured file permissions when using the local filesystem for storage.
Insufficient free space when using the local filesystem for storage.

tsrecorder now exercises the full set of required storage actions on startup.

Unreachable tsrecorder after a session is established

If tsrecorder instances became unreachable after a session had started, the SSH session would take several minutes to terminate. This could happen when tsrecorder went offline or when ACLs were updated to restrict access to tsrecorder nodes.

The Tailscale client now detects tsrecorder unreachability within 30 seconds and terminates the connection.

Who was affected?

Users of Tailscale SSH recording with enforceRecorder option and with tsrecorder and Tailscale client versions prior to 1.78.0.

What was the impact?

Users connecting over Tailscale SSH to nodes that enforce session recording via enforceRecorder ACL flags would have been able to execute commands briefly before having their access terminated due to recording failures.

What do I need to do?

Update tsrecorder instances and Tailscale clients to version 1.78.0 or later.

TS-2024-012

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Tailscale Funnel abused for phishing

What happened?

A malicious user abused Tailscale Funnel to host a phishing page targeting Facebook users. This user created multiple free Tailscale accounts to use as an obfuscation/anonymity proxy for their VPS instance hosting the phishing page.

We received the first report about a phishing page on September 23rd, 2024, and took down the Funnel page the same day. We received the second report on October 1st, 2024, for the same phishing page on a different Tailscale account. We took down the second page, added detection for new similar pages, and repeatedly shut down new attacker accounts as they were created. After a few more attempts, the attacker stopped creating new accounts.

Who was affected?

232 unique IP addresses accessed the attacker's Funnel nodes. Of those, 87 IP addresses made more than one request, suggesting a possible phishing form submission.

What was the impact?

Some Facebook users could have been phished for their credentials. Since Tailscale Funnel proxies can only see encrypted TLS traffic, we cannot confirm whether anyone was successfully phished.

What do I need to do?

Don't use Tailscale Funnel for phishing.

TS-2024-011

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: SCIM group name disclosure via the ACL editor

What happened?

The ACL editor in the admin console did not check SCIM group names in the ACL rules against the tailnet name. This allowed tailnet A to use SCIM groups from tailnet B in their ACL rules. A malicious user in tailnet A could not gain access to target tailnet B this way. However, they could use the fact that ACLs get saved without warnings to learn about valid SCIM group names in other tailnets.

This issue was fixed on July 19th, 2024. A user trying to save ACLs with SCIM group names from other tailnets will always receive a warning that these groups do not exist, even if they do exist in other tailnets.

Who was affected?

None of the existing tailnets' ACLs appear to use SCIM group names from other tailnets maliciously. A handful of customers used the wrong SCIM group names from their production tailnets in their test tailnets by accident.

What was the impact?

A malicious user could learn about SCIM group names used in other tailnets.

What do I need to do?

No action is required.

TS-2024-010

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Accidental ACL edits due to browser caching

What happened?

When switching tailnets in the admin console, an Admin user could overwrite the ACLs of one tailnet with pending changes to ACLs from another tailnet.

When a user has unsaved ACL changes in the admin console, those changes are cached in browser storage. If this user is a member of multiple tailnets, tailnet A and tailnet B, and is editing ACLs for tailnet A, using the tailnet switcher in the top-right corner of the page would not clear the cached ACL changes correctly. In some rare cases, saving ACLs of tailnet B after the switch would use the cached ACL contents from tailnet A.

A user can be an Admin in multiple tailnets when they use GitHub to log in, and are a member of GitHub organizations, or the user is invited to another tailnet and granted the Admin role.

Tailnet switching in the admin console was added on May 22nd, 2023. We fixed this bug on July 17th, 2024.

Who was affected?

Any user who is an Admin in multiple tailnets and edited ACLs in the admin console between May 22, 2023 and July 17th, 2024 could trigger this bug after switching the active tailnet.

What was the impact?

An Admin user could overwrite the ACLs of one tailnet with ACLs from another tailnet.

What do I need to do?

If you are an Admin of multiple tailnets using the same login name, review the ACLs in your tailnets for correctness.

TS-2024-009

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Potential for API credential disclosure over plaintext HTTP

What happened?

The Tailscale API is primarily accessible over TLS-encrypted HTTP at api.tailscale.com. It also has a limited plaintext HTTP handler to serve HTTP to HTTPS redirects.

Browsers that connect over plaintext HTTP do not send cookies marked as Secure to prevent them from being disclosed to network intermediaries.

However, API clients that connect using plaintext HTTP and send requests with authentication tokens in headers have no such protections to prevent disclosure.

Before June 26, 2024, the Tailscale API did not reject credentialed plaintext API requests and instead served them HTTP 302 redirects as it would to browsers. Typical HTTP client libraries handle redirects transparently, and consequently, the user would not necessarily know their credentials had been exposed.

Starting on June 26, 2024, the Tailscale API now returns errors for all plaintext HTTP requests that include credentials. Additionally, the Tailscale API now automatically revokes API keys that it observes sent over HTTP and notifies Tailnet security owners of this action.

Who was affected?

Any Tailscale API client that connected over plaintext HTTP using credentials before June 26, 2024.

What was the impact?

API clients that connected over plaintext HTTP before June 26, 2024 would have exposed their credentials to network intermediaries, risking them to theft and replay.

What do I need to do?

No action is needed at this time.

Credits

Thanks to Joachim Viide for reporting this issue.

TS-2024-008

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Partial loss of audit and network flow logs

What happened?

An integer overflow in our logs processing service led to some customer logs to be non-deterministically dropped with a probability of 14%. The overflow condition first exhibited on June 7th, 2024 at 20:45 UTC and was detected and resolved by June 14th, 2024 at 00:40 UTC.

Who was affected?

All tailnets that rely on audit and network flow logs have been affected.

What was the impact?

The 14% chance of dropped log entries affects storing of logs such as configuration audit logs and network flow logs. While logs can be retrieved for the timeframe that the overflow bug was active, some fraction of the entries may be missing.

What do I need to do?

No action is needed at this time.

We fixed the bug, added additional error checking, and deployed both to the logs processing service.

TS-2024-007

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Incorrect DNS resolution with split DNS on macOS and iOS

What happened?

On Tailscale macOS and iOS clients with split DNS configurations (like App Connectors or Restricted Nameservers), lookups of bare tailnet node names could in rare cases return incorrect answers. For example, if a node mynode and an App Connector for *.example.com exist on a tailnet, DNS lookups for mynode could return the answer for mynode.example.com instead of the local tailnet IP. This mis-configuration is intermittent, and most often triggers for a few seconds when switching device networks (for example from Wi-Fi to a phone hotspot).

We fixed this bug in client version 1.68.0, and notified the security contacts of potentially affected tailnets over email.

Who was affected?

All tailnets that use App Connectors or Restricted Domains, and have macOS or iOS nodes could have been affected.

This bug is usually intermittently-triggered when switching networks in our experience. Only lookups of bare domains, like mynode but not mynode.mytailnet.ts.net, are at risk.

Note that not all split DNS domains are dangerous. Only domains where an attacker can choose their FQDN to match a node name, and controls the destination to receive non-TLS traffic could be abused.

We are not aware of any active exploitation of this vulnerability.

What was the impact?

For a split DNS domain example.com, an attacker with control over mynode.example.com can impersonate a non-TLS server running on node mynode on the tailnet. This attack is opportunistic and passive - it relies on the user connecting to mynode using its bare domain and cannot be forced remotely.

What do I need to do?

Upgrade your macOS and iOS clients to 1.68.0 or later.

TS-2024-006

Wed, 22 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Tailnet SSO provider migration impacting invited users

What happened?

When tailnets are created, they are associated with an SSO provider such as Google or Microsoft, requiring all members of the tailnet to authenticate using that provider. In addition, Tailscale also supports inviting external users to tailnets to allow sharing with contractors, friends, or other collaborators who may use a different SSO provider than that of the inviting tailnet to log in to Tailscale.

Customers with an existing tailnet who wish to use a different SSO provider can request to migrate via customer support. The internal tool used to perform these migrations previously migrated the SSO provider for all members of a tailnet, including those of invited external members.

We fixed this internal tool to migrate direct tailnet members, excluding invited members on May 20, 2024.

We reverted the erroneous SSO provider changes and notified affected users on May 23, 2024.

Who was affected?

55 users were invited external members of tailnets whose SSO provider was subsequently migrated prior to May 20, 2024. We have notified the security contacts for the tailnets where users were affected by this incident.

What was the impact?

Users whose SSO providers were erroneously migrated would have been unable to log in to Tailscale during this time, as their SSO source would differ from the one on record.

What do I need to do?

No action is needed at this time.

TS-2024-005

Wed, 08 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Insufficient inbound packet filtering in subnet routers and exit nodes

What happened?

In Tailscale versions earlier than 1.66.0, exit nodes, subnet routers, and app connectors, could allow inbound connections to other tailnet nodes from their local area network (LAN). This vulnerability only affects Linux exit nodes, subnet routers, and app connectors in tailnets where ACLs allow "src": "*", such as with default ACLs.

Tailscale version 1.66.0 fixes the vulnerability. Additionally, a server-side update changes the interpretation of "src": "*" to mitigate the issue specifically for exit nodes.

Special thanks to Hakan Ergan for reporting a similar concern that led us to discover this vulnerability.

Who was affected?

This affected the following nodes using Tailscale version 1.65 or earlier:

Exit nodes on Linux
Subnet routers on Linux
App connectors on Linux
Regular nodes on all platforms connecting to the above nodes

Tailnets with custom ACLs that do not use "src": "*" or any other value that includes external IPs were not affected.

We are not aware of any active exploitation of this vulnerability.

What was the impact?

Devices outside of the tailnet, but on the same LAN as an exit node, subnet router, or app connector could connect to ports on tailnet nodes that are allowed by ACLs.

What do I need to do?

Upgrade the following nodes to 1.66.0 or later:

Subnet routers on Linux
App connectors on Linux
Regular nodes on all platforms that use exit nodes shared from other tailnets or Mullvad exit nodes

We recommend enabling auto-updates and updating all nodes to the latest version, but it is not required to mitigate this vulnerability.

A server-side change mitigated this vulnerability for other types of affected nodes.

Technical details

Below, we refer to exit nodes, subnet routers, and app connectors as packet-forwarding nodes, because the details apply to all of them. Specific types of packet-forwarding nodes are mentioned explicitly where their behavior is different.

Before 1.66.0, packets between regular nodes and destination hosts behind packet-forwarding nodes were filtered based on source/destination IP as specified in tailnet ACLs. Specifying "src": "*" in ACLs is equivalent to "src": ["0.0.0.0/0", "::/0"], meaning any IP address. This allowed source IPs outside of the tailnet to send packets to tailnet nodes via a packet-forwarding node. This could be abused by malicious LAN hosts to connect into the tailnet using a known tailnet node IP.

The attack only works on a LAN because:

it relies on next-hop routing, which only works in a LAN
destination IPs are in the subnet router's approved range, or in the CGNAT range 100.64.0.0/10, which are not routable over the Internet.

Attacks

Here are several attack scenarios.

Packet-forwarding node on an untrusted LAN.

A malicious host 10.0.0.1 on the same LAN as the packet-forwarding node 10.0.0.2 could craft packets with destination IP of a tailnet node 100.64.0.1 (using a command like ip route add 100.64.0.1/32 via 10.0.0.2 dev eth0) and send them to the packet-forwarding node. The packet-forwarding node would accept them and forward them to the victim node. The victim node would see a packet from 10.0.0.1 and accept it if the tailnet ACLs allow this source IP.

This scenario is very similar to a legitimate use-case of site-to-site networking, where two subnets are bridged using Tailscale subnet routers and the flag --snat-subnet-routes=false.

Malicious shared exit node

A malicious exit node 100.64.0.4 from tailnet A could craft packets with destination IP of tailnet B node 100.64.0.3 and any source IP other than 100.64.0.4. Due to the built-in quarantining of shared nodes, packets from 100.64.0.4 are rejected.

Mitigations

We implemented 3 separate mitigations for these attacks.

Redefine "src": "*" in ACLs

While * is a convenient shorthand in ACLs, Tailscale users almost never need to allow connections from any IP. In most cases users intend * as "all other nodes in my tailnet". As a mitigation for this vulnerability, we redefined * in src section of ACLs to include:

all tailnet nodes
all IPs from approved subnet routes

The inclusion of IPs from approved subnet routes is needed for the site-to-site networking setup.

For users that need the old semantics of * we added a new autogroup:danger-all, which matches the old definition of *.

Stateful packet filtering on packet-forwarding nodes

On Linux packet-forwarding nodes we added stateful packet filtering. This means that these nodes keep track of forwarded connections and only allow return packets for existing outbound connections. Inbound packets that don't belong to an existing connection are dropped.

Because routing is implemented differently on non-Linux platforms, this mitigation is only necessary on Linux.

Stateful filtering is enabled by default, except for existing subnet routers that set --snat-subnet-routes=false. You can disable stateful filtering using tailscale up --stateful-filtering=false.

Client-side quarantining of shared nodes

Quarantining of shared nodes was implemented by a packet filter sent from the Tailscale control plane. This packet filter instructs nodes to drop any inbound connections from the source IP of the shared node. To prevent malicious shared exit nodes from crafting packets with different source IPs, additional client-side quarantining logic was added. The 1.66.0 and later clients reject all inbound connections from quarantined nodes, regardless of their source IP. This is similar to how the "shields up" mode works within the tailnet.

TS-2024-004

Mon, 06 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Unclear network flow logs collection status for alpha testers.

What happened?

When network flow logs first entered private alpha, tailnet admins who were interested in testing out the feature had to request to be manually opted into the alpha testing track. When we subsequently introduced admin console settings for self-serve network flow logs for the public beta launch, these settings were not properly connected to the alpha testing track. As a result, for the small number of tailnets that volunteered for alpha testing, the admin console interface did not show that logs were still being collected as initially requested.

We fixed this bug on April 25, 2024 and the admin console now correctly shows the status of network flow logs for all users.

Who was affected?

15 tailnets were opted into network flow log collection through the alpha testing track that did not re-enroll through the admin console. We notified security contacts for the affected tailnets about this bug.

What was the impact?

The admin panel did not reflect the correct status for network flow log collection for affected tailnets, and admins of these tailnets may not have realized that network flow logs were still being collected.

What do I need to do?

No action is needed at this time.

TS-2024-003

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Bug in SSH check mode with checkPeriod set to 0s.

What happened?

Check mode in Tailscale SSH forces an SSH client to periodically re-authenticate when connecting to SSH servers. The period is configured via the checkPeriod attribute in Tailscale ACLs, and defaults to 12 hours.

A bug in ACL parsing interpreted "checkPeriod": "0s" as unset, and used the default period of 12 hours instead.

We deployed a fix for the bug in ACL parsing logic on 2024-04-23. SSH clients in tailnets that set "checkPeriod": "0s" are now correctly prompted for re-authentication on every connection.

Note that a special value "checkPeriod": "always" is the documented recommended way to achieve this behavior.

We thank Finch for reporting this issue.

Who was affected?

17 tailnets use Tailscale SSH with "action": "check" and "checkPeriod": "0s". We notified security contacts for the affected tailnets about this bug.

What was the impact?

SSH clients in the affected tailnets were prompted to re-authenticate every 12 hours, instead of during each connection as intended by the tailnet administrators.

What do I need to do?

No action is needed at this time.

TS-2024-002

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: We resolved an information disclosure vulnerability in the hello.ts.net service.

What happened?

On January 15 2024, we became aware of a potential information disclosure vulnerability in the hello.ts.net service, which could show the identity of a different Tailscale user when loaded. The hello.ts.net service receives identity information and public keys of nodes tied to their IP address. On November 28 2023, we made a change to how IPs are assigned to Tailscale nodes, making them globally non-unique. When the Tailscale service assigned the same IP to multiple nodes, hello.ts.net would receive identity information for one of the nodes at random. We confirmed on January 26 2024 that, if one of the other nodes with that IP loaded hello.ts.net, they would see another user's name, email, and hostname.

The Tailscale Security Team immediately took hello.ts.net offline while the fix was in progress. The issue has been fixed and the hello.ts.net service was restored on January 29 2024.

Who was affected?

The incident was isolated to 10 users across 9 tailnets who could have had their information leaked to other Tailscale users. We notified the tailnet security contacts directly in accordance with our obligations under applicable data privacy laws. Due to the random nature of the vulnerability, we cannot confirm that all of those users were indeed affected.

Regular shared nodes always see unique node IPs and were not vulnerable in a manner similar to hello.ts.net.

What was the impact?

A small number of users had their name, email, and hostname potentially exposed to other Tailscale users that had nodes sharing the same IP.

In addition, the hello.ts.net service was offline between January 26-29 2024. Several users reported being negatively impacted by this.

What do I need to do?

No action is needed at this time.

If you have a dependency on hello.ts.net as a probing target for Tailscale connectivity, consider using a different probing mechanism.

TS-2024-001

Mon, 08 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Description: On Windows before Tailscale version 1.52 and on Linux before Tailscale 1.54, the tailscale serve and tailscale funnel features allowed users to serve the contents of directories that their user account could not access, but which the tailscaled service process could.

What happened?

A user could escalate their own file read access by running, for example, tailscale.exe serve http / C:\, and then browsing to the local HTTP endpoint.

The issue can also occur on Linux if the local administrator enabled an operator user ID with tailscale up --operator=$USER, as the $USER account could serve itself files that it could not normally read.

Who is affected?

Owners of Windows deployments for which the users of Tailscale nodes do not also have OS-level administrative access, and owners of Linux deployments where the administrator enabled non-root --operator access.

This issue can only be triggered by a local user and cannot be triggered remotely.

What is the impact?

This issue enables local privilege escalation (file read access). Access to certain system files (such as /etc/shadow on Linux) can then be used to obtain full administrative control over the host.

What do I need to do?

On Windows 10 and later, upgrade to Tailscale 1.52 (released 30 October 2023) or later, which resolves the issue.

On Windows 7 and 8, upgrade to Tailscale 1.44.3 (released 8 Jan 2024), which resolves the issue.

On Linux, upgrade to 1.54 (released 15 November 2023) or later, which resolves the issue.

The best practice is to run the latest stable version, which as of this writing is 1.56.1. Consider turning on automatic updates.

Use Tailscale ACLs to control the availability of Funnel.

TS-2023-009

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Description: The OAuth implementation of Google Workspace allows for the creation of Google accounts associated with a given Workspace domain that are not actually controlled by that workspace, e.g. [email protected]. As a result, these accounts may be used to retain access to systems that use Google Workspace SSO login even after the original account has been deactivated or removed.

What happened?

Tailscale uses Google as one of the possible identity providers for creating and joining a tailnet. Users who have emails with the same domain name can automatically sign in using SSO and be added to the corresponding tailnet (unless user approval is turned on for the tailnet). The OAuth vulnerability reported by Truffle Security means that it is possible for an attacker to create a new personal Google Account that is attached to an alias of their legitimate Workspace account. This new account will not register as being part of the domain's Workspace, and thus cannot be removed by its admins. However, if the attacker then uses the new, spoofed Google Account to log into Tailscale, we would have treated it as a legitimate user in the tailnet. Thus, users could remain connected to a tailnet using this spoofed account even if their primary Workspace account has been disabled, e.g. after employee termination.

We became aware of the vulnerability on 2023-12-21 when its disclosure by Truffle Security was circulated widely. We deployed a remediation that prevents personal Google accounts from logging into tailnets associated with Workspace accounts on 2023-12-21.

Who is affected?

Everyone who uses Google Workspace to sign in.

What is the impact?

Tailnets that use Google Workspace as their SSO provider may have Tailscale users that do not have a corresponding user in the Google Workspace. Prior to 2023-12-21, this would have made it possible for those users to retain access to Tailscale after their SSO account was deleted. Following the remediation, these users can no longer login to Tailscale.

What do I need to do?

Tailscale admins should visit the Users page of the Tailscale admin console and audit the list of users to see if there are unknown addresses that should not be there. Admins can also export this list of users as a CSV file to examine offline.

For extra security, you can turn on user approval for your Tailnet so that every new user of Tailscale has to be manually approved by an admin. Note: this does not mitigate against situations where the attacker is themselves an admin of Tailscale.

TS-2023-008

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Privilege escalation bugs in the Tailscale Kubernetes operator's API proxy allowed authenticated tailnet clients to send Kubernetes API requests as the operator's service account.

Tailscale Kubernetes operator version v1.53.37 fixes the issue and users of the operator who enable the API proxy functionality should update as described below.

What happened?

The Tailscale Kubernetes operator can optionally act as an API server proxy for the cluster's Kubernetes API. This proxy allows authenticated tailnet users to use their tailnet identity in Kubernetes authentication and RBAC rules. The API server proxy uses impersonation headers to translate tailnet identities to Kubernetes identities.

The operator prior to v1.53.37 has two bugs in the forwarding logic, which affects different modes of operation:

In the default proxy mode that applies Tailscale identity to proxied requests, incorrect header sanitization allowed a request with a crafted Connection header to drop the impersonation headers from the proxied request. This caused the proxied request to be authenticated as the operator's service account, and inherit the operator's permissions.
In the no-auth proxy mode, which does not apply Tailscale identity to forwarded requests, a specially crafted request could similarly cause the proxied request to use the operator's identity, with similar results.

The bug was reported by Mo Khan from Microsoft on 2023-11-01, and fixed on the same day.

Who is affected?

Tailnets using the API server proxy in Tailscale Kubernetes operator images with the following tags are affected:

unstable-v1.53.20 or earlier
unstable deployed before the tag was updated to 1.53.37, some time on 2023-11-01.

Operator users running in the default operator configuration are not affected, as the API proxy is not enabled by default.

What is the impact?

Authenticated tailnet users who have access to the operator's API proxy can make requests to the Kubernetes API with operator privileges. In the proxy mode that allows the operator to use impersonation, this can be used for further privilege escalation to other cluster identities.

External attackers cannot exploit this vulnerability without being a member of the tailnet.

What do I need to do?

Update the Tailscale Kubernetes operator image to version unstable-v1.53.37 or later.

If you used the official operator manifest file, download the new manifest file and run kubectl apply -f manifest.yaml.

If you used the Helm chart, set the operatorConfig.image.tag to unstable-v1.53.37 in the values.yaml file and run helm upgrade <path-to-chart-directory> -n tailscale -f <path-to-values-file>

If you wrote your own manifest or Helm chart, update the k8s-operator image tag to unstable-v1.53.37 and redeploy it.

TS-2023-007

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Microsoft Defender is flagging Tailscale 1.46.1 as malware. These classifications are false positives, and we are working with Microsoft to resolve the situation.

As of 2023-10-27 1:05 AM UTC, we have confirmed that Microsoft have addressed the false positive, meaning Defender no longer flags Tailscale 1.46.1 as malware. A rescan of tailscaled.exe 1.46.1 on VirusTotal confirms this.

What happened?

Microsoft Defender was flagging Tailscale 1.46.1 as malware. This caused Defender to quarantine the binaries, meaning they could not run.

We submitted Tailscale 1.46.1 to Microsoft to investigate the false positive, who then updated Defender to avoid flagging this release as malware at 2023-10-27 1:05 AM UTC.

Who is affected?

People using Defender and Tailscale 1.46.1.

What is the impact?

Tailscale will not run on affected machines.

What do I need to do?

To resolve this issue on your own tailnet, you can take either or both of 2 approaches:

Update to a newer version of Tailscale. Newer versions are not affected by this problem.
Create an exception in Microsoft Defender. Microsoft has published instructions explaining how to do this.
Update Microsoft Defender.

TS-2023-006

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Description: An issue in the Tailscale client, combined with a behavior of the UPnP implementations in some routers, could expose all UDP ports of a node to external networks (usually the internet).

As of 2023-08-22 2:30 AM UTC, we have changed the Tailscale coordination server to advise nodes to stop using UPnP for port mapping. In some cases this can degrade NAT traversal and may cause some connections to route through DERP. This may increase node-to-node latency and decrease throughput. Version 1.48.1 resolves the issue and re-enables port mapping via UPnP.

What happened?

Tailscale nodes use UPnP as one of the mechanisms to open UDP port forwarding in routers to help with NAT traversal. Tailscale picks a node port and an external router port and requests forwarding between them. On first start Tailscale requested external port 0, which many routers interpret as a request to pick a random available port. However, some routers interpret this as a request to listen on all external ports and forward traffic to matching node ports.

Depending on the router's implementation of UPnP, a node could end up open to all UDP traffic from external networks. If some processes listen on UDP ports on the node, this could be used as a vector of attack against other software running on the node.

Any firewall software running on the node would be able to stop unwanted UDP packets, if configured to do so.

The bug was discovered and fixed on 2023-08-21, and the fix was published in the 1.48.1 release.

Who is affected?

The only known vulnerable routers are those running the miniupnpd server, versions 1.9 (2016) or earlier. Other UPnP server implementations may also be vulnerable, but Tailscale is not aware of any as of 2023-08-22.

A small percentage of nodes listened on router port 0 via UPnP before the mitigation was deployed. All nodes running vulnerable versions now have UPnP port mapping disabled.

What is the impact?

Any node service listening on UDP ports from any IP could receive traffic from external networks. This only applies to networks where the router implements UPnP wildcard port support.

If such a service does not implement authentication and/or authorization, allows packets to trigger sensitive actions, or has separate remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities, the node could be compromised by an attacker.

What do I need to do?

UPnP on vulnerable versions was disabled by the coordination server. Update Tailscale to version 1.48.1 or later to restore NAT traversal using UPnP for better node connectivity.

We do not recommend disabling UPnP or other port-mapping protocols on your router. These protocols greatly improve connectivity for Tailscale and other applications.

TS-2023-005

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Description: An issue in the Tailscale coordination server in device reauthentication logic caused previously authenticated and tagged devices to lose their ACL tags upon reauthentication.

What happened?

The logic that handles the reauthentication to a new identity on an already-authenticated device with tags had a bug: instead of updating the device’s logged-in identity to the newly authenticated user, the device’s identity became that of the user who originally added it to the tailnet, without any tags.

The bug was introduced on 2022-10-26, and discovered and remediated on 2023-04-21. The bug was discovered when troubleshooting a user-reported issue.

Who is affected?

189 tailnets triggered this bug in the course of normal use of Tailscale, either directly by explicitly re-authenticating a device, or indirectly by using fast user switching to switch between multiple tailnets.

We have notified affected organizations where we have security contacts.

What is the impact?

Devices that encountered the bug had their tags removed, which reverted the device’s identity to that of the user who originally authenticated the device, or the owner of the auth key that was originally used to authenticate the device. In either case, this is the user listed as “Creator” in the Machines tab of the admin panel. Depending on access rules in the tailnet policy file, this could change the device’s network permissions.

We have analyzed the audit logs for affected tailnets, and found no evidence of deliberate exploitation. In most instances, device owners noticed the incorrect outcome of reauthentication, and corrected the device’s state themselves.

What do I need to do?

If you were not contacted by Tailscale, no action is required. If you were contacted by Tailscale, reapply the desired tags to affected devices in the admin console, or by reauthenticating the devices. Tailscale has deployed a fix to the coordination server as of 2023-04-21, and notified affected organizations.

TS-2023-004

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Description: An issue in the Tailscale coordination server allowed tailnets created by GitHub organizations which were subsequently renamed to be associated with a new GitHub organization with the previous name.

What happened?

Tailscale mapped tailnets created by GitHub organizations to their organization name, rather than to their organization ID. This meant that if a GitHub organization was renamed, and the previous name taken over by a new GitHub organization, the existing tailnet would be tied to the new GitHub organization instead of the original one.

Who is affected?

Up to 1,305 tailnets created by GitHub organizations may have been affected, if those GitHub organizations were renamed between 2021-06-18 and 2023-03-30 and fully relinquished the old GitHub organization name. Additional tailnets created by GitHub organizations could be verified to definitely not have been renamed in that time period based on organization membership.

No tailnets were definitively found to have been affected. If a tailnet created by a GitHub organization is affected, we can detect this the next time an unauthorized user logs in to the tailnet belonging to the renamed organization and block their access. We will contact the security contact for that tailnet if that happens.

What is the impact?

A renamed GitHub organization may have had their previous tailnet visible to a newly created GitHub organization with the same name. The new GitHub organization would be aware of the existence of the previous tailnet. Devices added to the new GitHub organization would be aware of the existence and some metadata of previous added devices, including: their host names, their OS and version, when the devices were last connected, and their public IP addresses. They would have been able to connect to these devices if allowed by ACLs. The new GitHub organization would not have had any admin access or be able to see or modify any setting in the admin console.

There is no evidence of this vulnerability being purposefully triggered or exploited.

What do I need to do?

No action is required. Tailscale has deployed a fix to the coordination server as of 2023-03-30.

GitHub organizations which were previously renamed and lost access to their tailnet should contact support. When renaming a GitHub organization, contact support to migrate the tailnet to the new GitHub organization.

Credits

We would like to thank Thomas Way for reporting this issue.

TS-2023-003

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Reference: CVE-2023-28436

Severity: Medium

CVSS vector string: CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

Description: A vulnerability identified in the implementation of Tailscale SSH in FreeBSD allowed commands to be run with a higher privilege group ID than that specified by Tailscale SSH access rules.

Affected platforms: FreeBSD

Patched Tailscale client versions: v1.38.2 or later

What happened?

A difference in the behavior of the FreeBSD setgroups system call from POSIX meant that the Tailscale client running on a FreeBSD-based operating system did not appropriately restrict groups on the host when using Tailscale SSH. When accessing a FreeBSD host over Tailscale SSH, the egid of the tailscaled process was used instead of that of the user specified in Tailscale SSH access rules.

Who is affected?

9 tailnets with 22 FreeBSD nodes running Tailscale SSH since Tailscale v1.34 (released on 2022-12-04) may have had Tailscale SSH sessions with a higher privilege group ID than that specified in Tailscale SSH access rules.

We have notified affected organizations where we have security contacts.

What is the impact?

Tailscale SSH commands may have been run with a higher privilege group ID than that specified in Tailscale SSH access rules if they met all of the following criteria:

The destination node was a FreeBSD device with Tailscale SSH enabled;
Tailscale SSH access rules permitted access for non-root users; and
A non-interactive SSH session was used.

What do I need to do?

If you are running Tailscale on FreeBSD, upgrade to v1.38.2 or later to remediate the issue. Admins of a tailnet can view FreeBSD nodes with unpatched versions in the admin console.

To update the local ports tree in advance of what's available upstream, you can:

cd /usr/ports/security/tailscale
edit the Makefile to set PORTVERSION to 1.38.2
make makesum
make install

Tailscale SSH on other platforms is not affected.

Credits

We would like to thank Ryan Belgrave for reporting this issue.

TS-2023-002

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Description: An issue in the Tailscale coordination server allowed nodes with expired node keys to continue communicating with other nodes in a tailnet.

What happened?

There was a flaw in Tailscale’s logic for expiring node keys. If the set of nodes that can connect in a tailnet (the netmap) didn’t have any changes, then expired node keys were not immediately removed from the netmap. The longest delay in removal was 19 days, from 2022-12-20 to 2023-01-09.

Who is affected?

All tailnets with nodes whose node keys expired prior to 2023-01-12 may have been affected. Admins of a tailnet can view nodes with expired node keys in the admin console.

What is the impact?

Connections between nodes could continue after a node key expired, both when the expired node key was the source or when it was the destination of a connection. Connections to nodes with expired node keys would only be possible if they met all of the following criteria:

The peer node was in the same tailnet as, or shared into a tailnet with the node with the expired node key;
The peer node and the node with the expired node key were allowed to connect based on the access rules in the tailnet policy file at the time of expiry of the node key;
The tailnet’s netmap, including access rules, nodes added or removed from the tailnet, or connectivity of nodes in the tailnet did not change since the node key expiry; and
Tailscale had not deployed a change to the coordination server since the node key expiry.

What do I need to do?

No action is required. Tailscale has deployed a fix to the coordination server as of 2023-01-11.

Upgrade clients to v1.36 or later for an additional mitigation. In conjunction with the coordination server fix, this mitigation prevents nodes from connecting to nodes with expired node keys if the Tailscale coordination server is offline or unreachable.

Credits

We would like to thank Derek Ellis and Alex Eiser for reporting this issue.

TS-2023-001

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Description: An issue in the Tailscale coordination server allowed a malicious individual to share nodes from other tailnets to themselves, if they knew the node ID of the target.

What happened?

A bug in Tailscale’s node sharing logic allowed the creation of sharing invitations by unauthorized users. A malicious individual who knew a target node’s database ID could generate and accept a sharing invite for that node without being an admin of the target node’s tailnet.

This was possible for any node in any tailnet, as long as the individual knew the target’s node ID. The node ID is an integer used in the admin panel’s database, and is not related to the node “StableID” that is visible to Tailscale clients. A node’s ID is only visible in the API or admin console, by admins of either the node’s tailnet or a tailnet to which that node has already been shared. IDs are random 64-bit numbers that are not sequential or otherwise easily guessable.

The bug was introduced on 2022-09-14, reported to us on 2023-01-11, and remediated on 2023-01-12.

Who is affected?

All tailnets with nodes are affected.

What is the impact?

This vulnerability was not triggered or exploited. Analysis of tailnet logs shows that no unauthorized shares were created or accepted while the vulnerability was present, except as part of the proof of concept from the individual who reported the vulnerability.

Admins of a tailnet can review nodes that are shared out of their tailnet in the admin console. Sharing invites are logged as events in configuration audit logs. Admins can also review invites created and accepted in their configuration audit logs in the admin console.

What do I need to do?

No action is required. Tailscale has deployed a fix to the coordination server as of 2023-01-12, and verified that the vulnerability was not exploited.

Credits

We would like to thank Benjamin Roberts (tsujamin) for reporting this issue.

TS-2022-004

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Reference: CVE-2022-41924

Severity: Critical

CVSS vector string: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:H

Description: A vulnerability identified in the Tailscale Windows client allows a malicious website to reconfigure the Tailscale daemon tailscaled, which can then be used to remotely execute code.

Affected platforms: Windows

Patched Tailscale client versions: v1.32.3 or later, v1.33.257 or later (unstable)

What happened?

In the Tailscale Windows client, the local API was bound to a local TCP socket, and communicated with the Windows client GUI in cleartext with no Host header verification. This allowed an attacker-controlled website visited by the node to rebind DNS to an attacker-controlled DNS server, and then make local API requests in the client, including changing the coordination server to an attacker-controlled coordination server.

Who is affected?

All Windows clients prior to version v1.32.3 are affected.

What is the impact?

An attacker-controlled coordination server can send malicious URL responses to the client, including pushing executables or installing an SMB share. These allow the attacker to remotely execute code on the node.

Reviewing all logs confirms this vulnerability was not triggered or exploited.

What do I need to do?

If you are running Tailscale on Windows, upgrade to v1.32.3 or later to remediate the issue.

Credits

We would like to thank Emily Trau and Jamie McClymont (CyberCX) for reporting this issue. Further detail is available in their blog post.

TS-2022-005

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Reference: CVE-2022-41925

Severity: Low

CVSS vector string: CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N

Description: A vulnerability identified in the Tailscale client allows a malicious website to access the peer API, which can then be used to access Tailscale environment variables.

Affected platforms: All

Patched Tailscale client versions: v1.32.3 or later, v1.33.257 or later (unstable)

What happened?

In the Tailscale client, the peer API was vulnerable to DNS rebinding. This allowed an attacker-controlled website visited by the node to rebind DNS for the peer API to an attacker-controlled DNS server, and then making peer API requests in the client, including accessing the node’s Tailscale environment variables.

Who is affected?

All Tailscale clients prior to version v1.32.3 are affected.

What is the impact?

An attacker with access to the peer API on a node could use that access to read the node’s environment variables, including any credentials or secrets stored in environment variables. This may include Tailscale authentication keys, which could then be used to add new nodes to the user’s tailnet. The peer API access could also be used to learn of other nodes in the tailnet or send files via Taildrop.

An attacker with access to the peer API who sent a malicious file via Taildrop which was accessed while it was loading could use this to gain access to the local API, and remotely execute code.

There is no evidence of this vulnerability being purposefully triggered or exploited.

What do I need to do?

Upgrade to v1.32.3 or later to remediate the issue.

Credits

We would like to thank Emily Trau and Jamie McClymont (CyberCX) for reporting this issue. Further detail is available in their blog post.

TS-2022-003

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Description: An issue in Tailscale’s implementation of the OAuth authentication flow for GitHub allowed users who authenticate to Tailscale with their GitHub user identity to create a tailnet for a GitHub organization using SAML authentication in GitHub Enterprise Cloud, where Tailscale is not an authorized OAuth app for their organization.

What happened?

Tailscale silently ignored a 403 error to the GitHub API query for organizations for an authenticated user that was returned when a user authenticated to SAML, but the organization had not authorized Tailscale. This only applied to organizations using SAML on GitHub Enterprise Cloud with OAuth app authorization enabled, and where Tailscale was not authorized.

As a result, a user identity could bypass the organization’s OAuth app access restrictions, and create a tailnet for the GitHub organization.

Who is affected?

Up to 7 tailnets for GitHub organizations on GitHub Enterprise Cloud which use SAML for authentication may have been created between 2021-06-18 and 2022-06-03 without Tailscale being an authorized OAuth app for their GitHub organization, and could have used Tailscale to connect devices in that organization. An additional 10 tailnets were created with no or only one device, and so could not have used Tailscale to connect between devices.

We have notified the Tailscale admins for the affected organizations who we were able to identify. We do not have a way to notify the GitHub organization owners.

If you’re a GitHub organization owner, you can see if Tailscale is approved for your GitHub organization by going to the organization’s settings page and selecting “Third-party access” from the left-hand navigation. Or, for an organization $your-org, navigate to

https://github.com/organizations/$your-org/settings/oauth_application_policy

What is the impact?

A tailnet may have been created for a GitHub organization without their GitHub organization owner’s approval. In this case, the use of Tailscale and the creation of a tailnet could be perceived as being sanctioned by their organization when it might not have been.

What do I need to do?

If you are affected, you will need to re-authenticate to keep using your tailnet. Tailscale has expired all admin console sessions for potentially affected GitHub organizations as of 2022-06-13. As a result, users in a potentially affected tailnet will need to re-authenticate the next time they access the admin console, and will not be able to do so without Tailscale being an authorized OAuth app, which may first require getting approval from their GitHub organization owner. Nodes in a potentially affected tailnet will also need to re-authenticate when their node keys expire. If you’re a GitHub organization owner, you can approve Tailscale as an OAuth app by following GitHub’s instructions for Approving OAuth Apps for your organization.

Tailscale has deployed a fix to the coordination server as of 2022-06-03, so that no new tailnets can be created without a GitHub organization owner’s approval.

Credits

We would like to thank Aurelia for reporting the issue. Further detail is available in their blog post.

TS-2022-002

Wed, 11 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Description: An issue in the Tailscale coordination server allowed individuals creating a new Tailscale account with a gmail.com email address to join the same tailnet, rather than individual tailnets.

What happened?

There was a flaw in Tailscale’s logic for migrating accounts between identity providers, and a new gmail.com shared tailnet was accidentally created. Once created, any user who tried to create a new Tailscale account with a gmail.com email address joined the shared gmail.com tailnet.

Who is affected?

A total of 44 users with 59 devices who created accounts for their gmail.com email addresses on 2022-05-11 between 10:56 and 13:12 PT were affected. We have notified affected users.

What is the impact?

Six connections between devices belonging to different users were made, but no traffic of concern flowed between them. Four connections were pings, and two connections were UDP traffic on port 27036, likely automated broadcasting by a gaming platform to discover peers to play with. There is no evidence of malicious traffic.

Impacted users could see some metadata about other users and devices from their devices’ clients, including users’ names, devices’ host names, and devices’ Tailscale IP addresses. This information was viewed by at least one user, who reported it to us.

One user, the tailnet Admin, was able to see all users and devices added to the shared gmail.com tailnet. This includes users’ email addresses, names, and when they were last connected; and devices’ host names, their OS and version, when the devices were last connected, and their public IP addresses. This information was viewed by the user, who reported it to us.

What do I need to do?

No action is required. Tailscale has deployed a fix to the coordination server as of 2022-05-11 13:12 PT.

New users registering for a Tailscale account with a gmail.com email address will create a tailnet as normal.

Credits

We would like to thank David Swafford and George Constantinides for reporting the issue.

TS-2022-001

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Description: An issue in the Tailscale coordination server allowed individuals using GitHub to authenticate to Tailscale to have their devices join a tailnet associated with an empty GitHub username.

What happened?

There was a flaw in Tailscale’s authorization logic for the GitHub identity provider. If a user tried to authenticate to Tailscale using their GitHub identity, and GitHub returned a 500 error, then in some cases, Tailscale interpreted that as authorization for an empty GitHub username, and connected these devices to the tailnet associated with the empty GitHub username.

Who is affected?

A total of five devices belonging to four users were affected between 2021-06-15 and 2022-02-04, when the issue was reported and remediated. We have contacted the two users we were able to identify.

You may be affected if you authenticated to Tailscale using a GitHub account, and after authorizing a connection using GitHub, you received a connection error. Without being asked to select which GitHub user or organization tailnet to connect to, your device would have connected to a tailnet.

What is the impact?

No device connected to another device in the tailnet. Other than the two devices which belonged to the same user, no two devices in the tailnet had valid node keys at the same time, and so did not and would not have been able to establish connections.

A device’s existence and some metadata was shared with devices added later in time. Devices added later in time were able to see previously added devices, including: their host names, their OS and version, when the devices were last connected, and their public IP addresses.

There is no evidence of this vulnerability being purposefully triggered or exploited.

Credits

We would like to thank Marvin Boothby (boothb) for reporting the issue.