Is Gravatar Secure to Use?
I really love the Gravatar concept. Its simple, useful, powerful and centrally managed, but how secure is it to use on a blog or service?
Regular users may have already seen that we have implemented Gravatars onto BlogSecurity; so its safe to use then, right?
I made a point on our new BlogSec-News service a couple days ago when implementing Gravatars onto BlogSec. This article expands these points.
My first thought was, creating a malicious image link and posting this on Gravatar. Imagine placing a malicious peice of code as your profile picture. Every site that has approved your previous comments are all of a sudden vulnerable! However, this thought was quickly exhausted, as Gravatar does not permit third party links. All images are uploaded to Gravatar and centrally managed. Good move!
So what are the risks then?
Without looking at the service in great detail, there are two obvious risks with using this service, both of which you should understand and accept before using it.
Firstly and less likely: If the Gravatar servers are hacked, attackers could embed malicious code into links, which could be used in a variety of attacks including Denial of Service and may, although unlikely, lead to your blog being compromised. However, for this to happen, your site would have to be vulnerable to other attacks.
Second and more likely: Users control what rating their images receive. By accepting Gravatars, you accept the possibility that some users may use inappropriate images or images of a sensitive nature. Its also difficult to detect these images, unless you were monitoring every post comment on every post (impossible). The end result may be an unhappy user or visitor who blames your site, especially when they fail to understand how the Gravatar service work.
It is important that these risks are understood and accepted before using the service. As a community, hopefully we’ll look out for these images. When spotted, we could always inform Gravatar, who hopefully have a procedure in place to manage abuse.
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Comments
Joseph, its not the same. Google Adsense only involves your site and Google. Gravatar gives individuals a portion of your site to potentially “deface”.
I haven’t look at MyBlogLog, this may be similar.
Thanks.
Gravatar only involves your site and Gravatar, so I’m not sure what your point was there.
Google AdSense (just like Gravatar) gives Google a place to potentially “deface” your site as well.
My point is that using third party code (images/Javascript) is an open door to your site, so there is a degree of trust involved. If Google or Gravatar were broken into, they could easily deface the sites they are used on. This issue isn’t limited to just Google or Gravatar, but to the concept of using third party code on your site in the first place.
I’m not suggesting people never use third party code, just that this isn’t a Gravatar specific issue.
Joseph, you could change your image now couldn’t you? My point is that every approved comment gives that commenter a degree of control over that page on your website. Your users have no control over Adsense.
However, I do get your point about trusting third party code in general.
Thanks.
Your users have no control over Adsense.
Well then who is buying up the adsense advertising? He’s right, it’s the same thing. I can go buy adsense ads if i want and put the content that I want in them. Now, Google probably scans the ads to a certain degree, but I’m sure there are ads in there that I wouldn’t want on my site.
Some of these issues aren’t unique to Gravatar, but stem from including third party code in your site. So the same would true for things like Google AdSense and MyBlogLog.