THE BLOCK: A researcher published 11 unpatched flaws in VPN service Tailscale, arguing that “infrastructure is vulnerabl | Hanami
THE BLOCK: A researcher published 11 unpatched flaws in VPN service Tailscale, arguing that “infrastructure is vulnerable today.” In lab tests, a user with approved Tailscale SSH access could gain root access and spread to other devices on the network. Tailscale has not yet issued a fix.
Tailscale is a VPN service, built on WireGuard, that people use to log into their own computers and servers from anywhere. Umbrel, a home server platform used to run bitcoin nodes, calls it “the easiest way” to reach an Umbrel remotely in its support docs.
Erica Windisch of Cyberdione Labs ran the tests between Oct. 22 and 24 on Tailscale’s latest client. Her report, linked below, says to turn off SSH forwarding for now.
Tailscale VP of Engineering Mike Shaver said on Reddit that the company has received the report and is “not recommending that everyone disable Tailscale SSH.” He said the issues concern what happens after someone is authorized to connect, which “isn’t the same as an unauthenticated attacker being able to connect to arbitrary machines.” In a reply, Shaver confirmed the flaws affect Tailscale’s own SSH feature, not regular SSH run over a Tailscale connection. Tailscale plans to publish a security advisory with patches.