Topic: OpenSSL release 1.1.1k March 25th, 2021

[Jan-E]

The OpenSSL project team would like to announce the forthcoming release of OpenSSL version 1.1.1k.

This release will be made available on Thursday 25th March 2021 between 1300-1700 UTC.

OpenSSL 1.1.1k is a security-fix release. The highest severity issue fixed in this release is HIGH:
https://www.openssl.org/policies/secpolicy.html#high

Yours

The OpenSSL Project Team

[Jan-E]

OpenSSL Security Advisory [25 March 2021]
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CA certificate check bypass with X509_V_FLAG_X509_STRICT (CVE-2021-3450)
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Severity: High

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.

This issue was reported to OpenSSL on 18th March 2021 by Benjamin Kaduk from Akamai and was discovered by Xiang Ding and others at Akamai. The fix was developed by Tomáš Mráz.


NULL pointer deref in signature_algorithms processing (CVE-2021-3449)
=============================================

Severity: High

An OpenSSL TLS server may crash if sent a maliciously crafted renegotiation ClientHello message from a client. If a TLSv1.2 renegotiation ClientHello omits the signature_algorithms extension (where it was present in the initial ClientHello), but includes a signature_algorithms_cert extension then a NULL pointer dereference will result, leading to a crash and a denial of service attack.

A server is only vulnerable if it has TLSv1.2 and renegotiation enabled (which is the default configuration). OpenSSL TLS clients are not impacted by this issue.

All OpenSSL 1.1.1 versions 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.

This issue was reported to OpenSSL on 17th March 2021 by Nokia. The fix was developed by Peter Kästle and Samuel Sapalski from Nokia.

[Jan-E]

There is a proof of concept that these vulnerabilities can lead to a denial-of-service. Everyone is urged to update.