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OpenSSL Releases Security Updates

High impact security updates address potential RCE and a denial-of-service condition

Threat ID:
CC-4203
Threat Severity:
Information only
Published:
2 November 2022 12:17 PM
Report a cyber attack: call 0300 303 5222 or email [email protected]

Summary

High impact security updates address potential RCE and a denial-of-service condition

Affected platforms

The following platforms are known to be affected:

Versions: 3.0.0 to 3.0.6

OpenSSL

OpenSSL 1.1.1 and 1.0.2 are not affected by this issue.

Threat details

Introduction

OpenSSL has released a security update to address two high severity vulnerabilities known as CVE-2022-3786 and CVE-2022-3602. These vulnerabilities are caused by a X.509 email address 4-byte buffer overflow or a variable length buffer overflow. A malicious attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to perform a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on an affected system or potentially allow remote code execution (RCE) in certain configurations.

Remediation advice

Affected organisations are encouraged to review the OpenSSL security advisory and apply any relevant updates.

CVE Vulnerabilities

Status Published

CVE-2022-3602

A buffer overrun can be triggered in X.509 certificate verification, specifically in name constraint checking. Note that this occurs after certificate chain signature verification and requires either a CA to have signed the malicious certificate or for the application to continue certificate verification despite failure to construct a path to a trusted issuer. An attacker can craft a malicious email address to overflow four attacker-controlled bytes on the stack. This buffer overflow could result in a crash (causing a denial of service) or potentially remote code execution. Many platforms implement stack overflow protections which would mitigate against the risk of remote code execution. The risk may be further mitigated based on stack layout for any given platform/compiler. Pre-announcements of CVE-2022-3602 described this issue as CRITICAL. Further analysis based on some of the mitigating factors described above have led this to be downgraded to HIGH. Users are still encouraged to upgrade to a new version as soon as possible. In a TLS client, this can be triggered by connecting to a malicious server. In a TLS server, this can be triggered if the server requests client authentication and a malicious client connects. Fixed in OpenSSL 3.0.7 (Affected 3.0.0,3.0.1,3.0.2,3.0.3,3.0.4,3.0.5,3.0.6).
Status Published

CVE-2022-3786

A buffer overrun can be triggered in X.509 certificate verification, specifically in name constraint checking. Note that this occurs after certificate chain signature verification and requires either a CA to have signed a malicious certificate or for an application to continue certificate verification despite failure to construct a path to a trusted issuer. An attacker can craft a malicious email address in a certificate to overflow an arbitrary number of bytes containing the `.' character (decimal 46) on the stack. This buffer overflow could result in a crash (causing a denial of service). In a TLS client, this can be triggered by connecting to a malicious server. In a TLS server, this can be triggered if the server requests client authentication and a malicious client connects. Fixed in OpenSSL 3.0.7 (Affected 3.0.0,3.0.1,3.0.2,3.0.3,3.0.4,3.0.5,3.0.6).

Last edited: 2 November 2022 12:17 pm