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Issue summary: Processing some specially crafted ASN.1...

Unreviewed Published May 30, 2023 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Nov 5, 2023

Package

No package listedSuggest a package

Affected versions

Unknown

Patched versions

Unknown

Description

Issue summary: Processing some specially crafted ASN.1 object identifiers or
data containing them may be very slow.

Impact summary: Applications that use OBJ_obj2txt() directly, or use any of
the OpenSSL subsystems OCSP, PKCS7/SMIME, CMS, CMP/CRMF or TS with no message
size limit may experience notable to very long delays when processing those
messages, which may lead to a Denial of Service.

An OBJECT IDENTIFIER is composed of a series of numbers - sub-identifiers -
most of which have no size limit. OBJ_obj2txt() may be used to translate
an ASN.1 OBJECT IDENTIFIER given in DER encoding form (using the OpenSSL
type ASN1_OBJECT) to its canonical numeric text form, which are the
sub-identifiers of the OBJECT IDENTIFIER in decimal form, separated by
periods.

When one of the sub-identifiers in the OBJECT IDENTIFIER is very large
(these are sizes that are seen as absurdly large, taking up tens or hundreds
of KiBs), the translation to a decimal number in text may take a very long
time. The time complexity is O(n^2) with 'n' being the size of the
sub-identifiers in bytes (*).

With OpenSSL 3.0, support to fetch cryptographic algorithms using names /
identifiers in string form was introduced. This includes using OBJECT
IDENTIFIERs in canonical numeric text form as identifiers for fetching
algorithms.

Such OBJECT IDENTIFIERs may be received through the ASN.1 structure
AlgorithmIdentifier, which is commonly used in multiple protocols to specify
what cryptographic algorithm should be used to sign or verify, encrypt or
decrypt, or digest passed data.

Applications that call OBJ_obj2txt() directly with untrusted data are
affected, with any version of OpenSSL. If the use is for the mere purpose
of display, the severity is considered low.

In OpenSSL 3.0 and newer, this affects the subsystems OCSP, PKCS7/SMIME,
CMS, CMP/CRMF or TS. It also impacts anything that processes X.509
certificates, including simple things like verifying its signature.

The impact on TLS is relatively low, because all versions of OpenSSL have a
100KiB limit on the peer's certificate chain. Additionally, this only
impacts clients, or servers that have explicitly enabled client
authentication.

In OpenSSL 1.1.1 and 1.0.2, this only affects displaying diverse objects,
such as X.509 certificates. This is assumed to not happen in such a way
that it would cause a Denial of Service, so these versions are considered
not affected by this issue in such a way that it would be cause for concern,
and the severity is therefore considered low.

References

Published by the National Vulnerability Database May 30, 2023
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database May 30, 2023
Last updated Nov 5, 2023

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

0.307%
(71st percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2023-2650

GHSA ID

GHSA-gqxg-9vfr-p9cg

Source code

No known source code

Dependabot alerts are not supported on this advisory because it does not have a package from a supported ecosystem with an affected and fixed version.

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