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OpenSSL Releases Security Updates

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Affected platforms

The following platforms are known to be affected:

Threat details

Introduction

OpenSSL has released a security update to address vulnerabilities that could cause a denial-of-service condition or bypass Certificate Authority (CA) certificate validation. An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.


Remediation advice

Affected organisations are encouraged to review the OpenSSL security advisory and update to OpenSSL Version 1.1.1k.


CVE Vulnerabilities

Status Published

CVE-2021-3450 - CA certificate check bypass with X509_V_FLAG_X509_STRICT

The X509_V_FLAG_X509_STRICT flag enables additional security checks of the certificates present in a certificate chain. It is not set by default. Starting from OpenSSL version 1.1.1h a check to disallow certificates in the chain that have explicitly encoded elliptic curve parameters was added as an additional strict check. An error in the implementation of this check meant that the result of a previous check to confirm that certificates in the chain are valid CA certificates was overwritten. This effectively bypasses the check that non-CA certificates must not be able to issue other certificates. If a "purpose" has been configured then there is a subsequent opportunity for checks that the certificate is a valid CA. All of the named "purpose" values implemented in libcrypto perform this check. Therefore, where a purpose is set the certificate chain will still be rejected even when the strict flag has been used. A purpose is set by default in libssl client and server certificate verification routines, but it can be overridden or removed by an application. In order to be affected, an application must explicitly set the X509_V_FLAG_X509_STRICT verification flag and either not set a purpose for the certificate verification or, in the case of TLS client or server applications, override the default purpose. OpenSSL versions 1.1.1h and newer are affected by this issue. Users of these versions should upgrade to OpenSSL 1.1.1k. OpenSSL 1.0.2 is not impacted by this issue. Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1k (Affected 1.1.1h-1.1.1j).

Last edited: 1 April 2021 2:06 pm