CVE-2021-4044 - Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

Severity

75%

Complexity

39%

Confidentiality

60%

Internally libssl in OpenSSL calls X509_verify_cert() on the client side to verify a certificate supplied by a server. That function may return a negative return value to indicate an internal error (for example out of memory). Such a negative return value is mishandled by OpenSSL and will cause an IO function (such as SSL_connect() or SSL_do_handshake()) to not indicate success and a subsequent call to SSL_get_error() to return the value SSL_ERROR_WANT_RETRY_VERIFY. This return value is only supposed to be returned by OpenSSL if the application has previously called SSL_CTX_set_cert_verify_callback(). Since most applications do not do this the SSL_ERROR_WANT_RETRY_VERIFY return value from SSL_get_error() will be totally unexpected and applications may not behave correctly as a result. The exact behaviour will depend on the application but it could result in crashes, infinite loops or other similar incorrect responses. This issue is made more serious in combination with a separate bug in OpenSSL 3.0 that will cause X509_verify_cert() to indicate an internal error when processing a certificate chain. This will occur where a certificate does not include the Subject Alternative Name extension but where a Certificate Authority has enforced name constraints. This issue can occur even with valid chains. By combining the two issues an attacker could induce incorrect, application dependent behaviour. Fixed in OpenSSL 3.0.1 (Affected 3.0.0).

CVSS 3.1 Base Score 7.5. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

CVSS 2.0 Base Score 5. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P).

Demo Examples

Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

CWE-835

In the following code the method processMessagesFromServer attempts to establish a connection to a server and read and process messages from the server. The method uses a do/while loop to continue trying to establish the connection to the server when an attempt fails.


               
}
...// create socket to connect to server
}// establish connection to server// if connected then read and process messages from server
...// read and process messages
// keep trying to establish connection to the server// close socket and return success or failure

However, this will create an infinite loop if the server does not respond. This infinite loop will consume system resources and can be used to create a denial of service attack. To resolve this a counter should be used to limit the number of attempts to establish a connection to the server, as in the following code.


               
}
...// initialize number of attempts counter
}// establish connection to server// increment counter// if connected then read and process messages from server
...// read and process messages
// keep trying to establish connection to the server// up to a maximum number of attempts// close socket and return success or failure

Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

CWE-835

For this example the method isReorderNeeded as part of a bookstore application that determines if a particular book needs to be reordered based on the current inventory count and the rate at which the book is being sold.


               
}
return isReorder;// get inventory count for book// find number of days until inventory count reaches minimum
days++;
// if number of days within reorder timeframe// set reorder return boolean to true
isReorder = true;

However, the while loop will become an infinite loop if the rateSold input parameter has a value of zero since the inventoryCount will never fall below the minimumCount. In this case the input parameter should be validated to ensure that a value of zero does not cause an infinite loop,as in the following code.


               
}
...// validate rateSold variable
return isReorder;

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