Google Drive Permissions

  • Resolved sgrx

    (@sgrx)


    7 years, 5 months ago

    Thanks for a great free WP plugin. Love the option to backup to Google Drive in a free plugin. However, when I saw the permissions I was a little surprised. I thought UpdraftPlus would ask all permissions for the folder it would create inside Google Drive, but instead it can access everything in Google Drive.

    This app wants permission to access everything in your Google Drive. It will be able to do the same things that you can do, including:

    See your files
    Upload and download your files
    Delete your files
    See the names and emails of people that you share files with
    Share and stop sharing your files with others
    Remove people from your files
    Organise your Drive
    There may be private information in your Google Drive, like financial records, medical reports, photos or tax info.

    Why is it so? Can’t it be just the Updraftplus folder you create that you should want permissions to?

    If we purchase UpdraftPlus premium, do you still ask for the same — all permissions on the entire Google Drive of an account?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Author David Anderson / Team Updraft

    (@davidanderson)

    7 years, 5 months ago

    Hi,

    The reason it doesn’t just ask for permission only to access the folder created is that if a user has to re-install WP (e.g. your site got hacked + destroyed) and create a new connection, he then normally doesn’t understand why he can’t access his existing backups from the previous install. So, we use the other possibility (there are only two) so that when you need to restore your site, you don’t get an unpleasant or confusing surprise.

    Google provide a very limited security model on Drive, unfortunately; possibly because they sell Google Cloud instead to people with more complicated needs.

    David

    mishamsk

    (@mishamsk)

    7 years, 3 months ago

    Hi David,

    Any plans to provide an option to use a restricted permission set rather then full? Once I’ve approached BackUpWordpress team with the same question and they’ve actually changed to restricted (only folder created by the app), which lowers the risks both for users and you, since no one can blame UpDraft for wiping out a personal drive.

    Even with the trust that you won’t be messing up with my files intentionally, with such a permission your plugin is a target for deliberate hacking. For me it is a make it or break it option, I’d buy premium, but only if it supports restricted access setting. And as you know it is just a matter of changing one digit in the request…

    Regards, Mike

    JuliaClark

    (@juliaclark)

    7 years ago

    Wow, David. You are going to get hacked, It is just a matter of time. Though, you probably have very few Google Drive users because only a nincompoop would authorize you to have full access to thier google drive.

    Even without a hacker, all it will take is one vindictive girlfriend or employee and there goes TB of other people’ data. And I would venture you do not have professional insurance to cover such a disaster because no insurer would ensure such a gaping hole. Oh, your excuse is utter nonsense.

    In addition, your thinking people that use google drive are incompetent is rude.
    Good luck.

    Thanks for the lead Mike. I’ll look them up

    PS. WordPress, you should shut Updraftplus down for such a gaping security flaw.

    • This reply was modified 7 years ago by JuliaClark.
    Plugin Author David Anderson / Team Updraft

    (@davidanderson)

    6 years, 12 months ago

    @mishamsk Yes, you can restrict to the more limited “only files created by the app” scope; add this as an mu-plugin or in your functions.php. Note that the way it’s written below assumes PHP 5.3+ :

    add_filter('updraft_googledrive_scope', function() { return 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.files https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.profile'; });

    N.B. If you do this, you won’t be able to use the “Rescan remote storage” feature to import backups that you manually uploaded into Google Drive (possibly some other things too).

    N.B. @sgrx It’s important to understand that in the OAuth2 security protocol, though an app could *theoretically* do those things, that doesn’t mean that UpdraftPlus, the company, can do any of those things. The *app* is the installed, open-source UpdraftPlus code on your website, in combination with the OAuth2 access token stored on your website. UpdraftPlus, the company, does not have access to your access token, and the code is all open source, distributed from ww.wp.xz.cn (and you can read the source whenever you like). As such, there’s never going to be a release of UpdraftPlus that does any of those things (ww.wp.xz.cn would boot us into outer space pretty immediately). It’s not like installing a proprietary app that’s closed to everyone.

    David

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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