Out-of-bounds Write Affecting edk2-ovmf package, versions <0:20240524-6.0.1.el9_5


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on Oracle Linux security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.07% (34th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-ORACLE9-EDK2OVMF-8385003
  • published20 Nov 2024
  • disclosed9 Jan 2024

Introduced: 9 Jan 2024

CVE-2023-6129  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-787  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Oracle:9 edk2-ovmf to version 0:20240524-6.0.1.el9_5 or higher.
This issue was patched in ELSA-2024-9088.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream edk2-ovmf package and not the edk2-ovmf package as distributed by Oracle. See How to fix? for Oracle:9 relevant fixed versions and status.

Issue summary: The POLY1305 MAC (message authentication code) implementation contains a bug that might corrupt the internal state of applications running on PowerPC CPU based platforms if the CPU provides vector instructions.

Impact summary: If an attacker can influence whether the POLY1305 MAC algorithm is used, the application state might be corrupted with various application dependent consequences.

The POLY1305 MAC (message authentication code) implementation in OpenSSL for PowerPC CPUs restores the contents of vector registers in a different order than they are saved. Thus the contents of some of these vector registers are corrupted when returning to the caller. The vulnerable code is used only on newer PowerPC processors supporting the PowerISA 2.07 instructions.

The consequences of this kind of internal application state corruption can be various - from no consequences, if the calling application does not depend on the contents of non-volatile XMM registers at all, to the worst consequences, where the attacker could get complete control of the application process. However unless the compiler uses the vector registers for storing pointers, the most likely consequence, if any, would be an incorrect result of some application dependent calculations or a crash leading to a denial of service.

The POLY1305 MAC algorithm is most frequently used as part of the CHACHA20-POLY1305 AEAD (authenticated encryption with associated data) algorithm. The most common usage of this AEAD cipher is with TLS protocol versions 1.2 and 1.3. If this cipher is enabled on the server a malicious client can influence whether this AEAD cipher is used. This implies that TLS server applications using OpenSSL can be potentially impacted. However we are currently not aware of any concrete application that would be affected by this issue therefore we consider this a Low severity security issue.

CVSS Scores

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