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X.509 subjectAltName matching (and nameConstraints) bypass

Low
mattklein123 published GHSA-c9g7-xwcv-pjx2 Feb 22, 2022

Package

envoy (C++)

Affected versions

1.20.1 and earlier

Patched versions

1.20.2

Description

Summary

A certificate authentication bypass allows malformed certificates issued by a malicious CA to be accepted as valid for a host.

Description

The API for matching Subject Alternative Names in X.509 certificates does not take into consideration the Subject Alternative Name type. A malicious CA that issues a malformed certificate, such as encoding a DNS hostname within an rfc822Name Subject Alternative Name or an email address within a uniformResourceIndicator Subject Alternative Name, will have that certificate successfully match against the configured name. Due to the malformed nature of the certificate, this may result in bypassing configured constraints, such as nameConstraints that restrict which DNS hostnames or email addresses a CA may issue for.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N, Low

Impact

This may allow for monster-in-the-middle attacks for Envoy users that rely on the X.509 nameConstraints extension to restrict the capabilities for CAs. This includes users who use common, commercially-available CAs that issue widely-trusted certificates, as they rely on nameConstraints to technically constrain subordinate CAs. Users that use enterprise-managed CAs and which do not use nameConstraints to restrict access to CAs may not be affected, as they already completely trust the CA to not issue malformed certificates.

Patches

Envoy version 1.20.1 adds the ability to specify type of SAN along with the value to match against.

IMPORTANT: Further action is required after upgrading to the patched version. Replace all usage of envoy_v3_api_field_extensions.transport_sockets.tls.v3.CertificateValidationContext.match_subject_alt_names with envoy_v3_api_field_extensions.transport_sockets.tls.v3.CertificateValidationContext.match_typed_subject_alt_names which will ensure the matching considers the type of Subject Alternative Name in use, as well as all appropriate nameConstraints.

Workarounds

None.

References

https://blog.envoyproxy.io
https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy/releases

For more information

Open an issue in Envoy repo
Email us at envoy-security

Severity

Low

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
High
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

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:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

CVE ID

CVE-2022-21656

Weaknesses