CVE-2023-2650 - Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

Severity

75%

Complexity

39%

Confidentiality

60%

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.

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 3.1 Base Score 6.5. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

Demo Examples

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

CWE-770

This code allocates a socket and forks each time it receives a new connection.


               
}
pid = fork();

The program does not track how many connections have been made, and it does not limit the number of connections. Because forking is a relatively expensive operation, an attacker would be able to cause the system to run out of CPU, processes, or memory by making a large number of connections. Alternatively, an attacker could consume all available connections, preventing others from accessing the system remotely.

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

CWE-770

In the following example a server socket connection is used to accept a request to store data on the local file system using a specified filename. The method openSocketConnection establishes a server socket to accept requests from a client. When a client establishes a connection to this service the getNextMessage method is first used to retrieve from the socket the name of the file to store the data, the openFileToWrite method will validate the filename and open a file to write to on the local file system. The getNextMessage is then used within a while loop to continuously read data from the socket and output the data to the file until there is no longer any data from the socket.


               
}
closeSocket(socket);
return(FAIL);
closeFile();
}
break;

This example creates a situation where data can be dumped to a file on the local file system without any limits on the size of the file. This could potentially exhaust file or disk resources and/or limit other clients' ability to access the service.

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

CWE-770

In the following example, the processMessage method receives a two dimensional character array containing the message to be processed. The two-dimensional character array contains the length of the message in the first character array and the message body in the second character array. The getMessageLength method retrieves the integer value of the length from the first character array. After validating that the message length is greater than zero, the body character array pointer points to the start of the second character array of the two-dimensional character array and memory is allocated for the new body character array.


               
}/* process message accepts a two-dimensional character array of the form [length][body] containing the message to be processed */
}
return(SUCCESS);
return(FAIL);

This example creates a situation where the length of the body character array can be very large and will consume excessive memory, exhausting system resources. This can be avoided by restricting the length of the second character array with a maximum length check

Also, consider changing the type from 'int' to 'unsigned int', so that you are always guaranteed that the number is positive. This might not be possible if the protocol specifically requires allowing negative values, or if you cannot control the return value from getMessageLength(), but it could simplify the check to ensure the input is positive, and eliminate other errors such as signed-to-unsigned conversion errors (CWE-195) that may occur elsewhere in the code.


               
if ((length > 0) && (length < MAX_LENGTH)) {...}

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

CWE-770

In the following example, a server object creates a server socket and accepts client connections to the socket. For every client connection to the socket a separate thread object is generated using the ClientSocketThread class that handles request made by the client through the socket.


               
}
} catch (IOException ex) {...}
serverSocket.close();
t.start();

In this example there is no limit to the number of client connections and client threads that are created. Allowing an unlimited number of client connections and threads could potentially overwhelm the system and system resources.

The server should limit the number of client connections and the client threads that are created. This can be easily done by creating a thread pool object that limits the number of threads that are generated.


               
}
} catch (IOException ex) {...}
serverSocket.close();
pool.execute(t);

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

CWE-770

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

CWE-770

Here the problem is that every time a connection is made, more memory is allocated. So if one just opened up more and more connections, eventually the machine would run out of memory.


               
}
return foo;
free(foo);
endConnection(foo)
foo=connection();

Overview

First reported 2 years ago

2023-05-30 14:15:00

Last updated 1 year ago

2023-10-27 15:15:00

Affected Software

OpenSSL Project OpenSSL

References

https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=423a2bc737a908ad0c77bda470b2b59dc879936b

https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20230530.txt

https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=853c5e56ee0b8650c73140816bb8b91d6163422c

https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=9e209944b35cf82368071f160a744b6178f9b098

https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=db779b0e10b047f2585615e0b8f2acdf21f8544a

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/05/30/1

https://www.debian.org/security/2023/dsa-5417

https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=423a2bc737a908ad0c77bda470b2b59dc879936b

Mailing List, Patch

https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20230530.txt

Vendor Advisory

https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=853c5e56ee0b8650c73140816bb8b91d6163422c

Broken Link

https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=9e209944b35cf82368071f160a744b6178f9b098

Mailing List, Patch

https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=db779b0e10b047f2585615e0b8f2acdf21f8544a

Mailing List, Patch

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/05/30/1

Mailing List

https://www.debian.org/security/2023/dsa-5417

Third Party Advisory

https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/06/msg00011.html

https://psirt.global.sonicwall.com/vuln-detail/SNWLID-2023-0009

https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230703-0001/

https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/06/msg00011.html

Mailing List, Third Party Advisory

https://psirt.global.sonicwall.com/vuln-detail/SNWLID-2023-0009

Third Party Advisory

https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230703-0001/

Third Party Advisory

https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20231027-0009/

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