Telegram CVE-2018-17780 flaw causes the leak of IP addresses when initiating calls

CVE-2018-17780 – Security researcher Dhiraj Mishra discovered that Telegram default configuration would expose a user’s IP address when making a call.

Strangely tdesktop 1.3.14 and Telegram for windows (3.3.0.0 WP8.1) leaks end-user private and public IP address while making calls.

.@telegram unsafe default behavior of P2P leaks IP address, and CVE-2018-17780 is assigned to this.https://t.co/V61JurNTgs#infosec #bugbounty

— Dhiraj (@RandomDhiraj) September 29, 2018

Telegram is supposedly a secure messaging application, but it forces clients to only use P2P connection while initiating a call, however this setting can also be changed from “Settings > Privacy and security > Calls > peer-to-peer” to other available options.

The tdesktop and telegram for windows breaks this trust by leaking public/private IP address of end user and there was no such option available yet for setting “P2P > nobody” in tdesktop and telegram for windows.

PS: Even telegram for Android will also leak your IP address if you have not set “Settings > Privacy and security > Calls > peer-to-peer >nobody” (But Peer-to-Peer settings for call option already exists in Telegram for android).

To view this in action in tdesktop:

2. Open telegram in windows phone login with user B
3. Let user B initiate the call to user A
4. While user A access log will have public/private IP address of user B.