Double Free Affecting openssl-devel package, versions <1:3.0.1-47.el9_1


Severity

Recommended
medium

Based on AlmaLinux security rating

    Threat Intelligence

    EPSS
    0.17% (56th percentile)

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  • Snyk ID SNYK-ALMALINUX9-OPENSSLDEVEL-5607601
  • published 28 May 2023
  • disclosed 28 Feb 2023

How to fix?

Upgrade AlmaLinux:9 openssl-devel to version 1:3.0.1-47.el9_1 or higher.
This issue was patched in ALSA-2023:0946.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream openssl-devel package and not the openssl-devel package as distributed by AlmaLinux. See How to fix? for AlmaLinux:9 relevant fixed versions and status.

The function PEM_read_bio_ex() reads a PEM file from a BIO and parses and decodes the "name" (e.g. "CERTIFICATE"), any header data and the payload data. If the function succeeds then the "name_out", "header" and "data" arguments are populated with pointers to buffers containing the relevant decoded data. The caller is responsible for freeing those buffers. It is possible to construct a PEM file that results in 0 bytes of payload data. In this case PEM_read_bio_ex() will return a failure code but will populate the header argument with a pointer to a buffer that has already been freed. If the caller also frees this buffer then a double free will occur. This will most likely lead to a crash. This could be exploited by an attacker who has the ability to supply malicious PEM files for parsing to achieve a denial of service attack.

The functions PEM_read_bio() and PEM_read() are simple wrappers around PEM_read_bio_ex() and therefore these functions are also directly affected.

These functions are also called indirectly by a number of other OpenSSL functions including PEM_X509_INFO_read_bio_ex() and SSL_CTX_use_serverinfo_file() which are also vulnerable. Some OpenSSL internal uses of these functions are not vulnerable because the caller does not free the header argument if PEM_read_bio_ex() returns a failure code. These locations include the PEM_read_bio_TYPE() functions as well as the decoders introduced in OpenSSL 3.0.

The OpenSSL asn1parse command line application is also impacted by this issue.

CVSS Scores

version 3.1
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NVD

7.5 high
  • Attack Vector (AV)
    Network
  • Attack Complexity (AC)
    Low
  • Privileges Required (PR)
    None
  • User Interaction (UI)
    None
  • Scope (S)
    Unchanged
  • Confidentiality (C)
    None
  • Integrity (I)
    None
  • Availability (A)
    High
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SUSE

5.9 medium
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Red Hat

7.5 high