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Vulnerability · Published Jan 9, 2024 · Assigned by openssl

CVE-2023-6129POLY1305 MAC implementation corrupts vector registers on PowerPC

Medium 6.5

In plain English

A medium-severity security flaw in OpenSSL from OpenSSL. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 2.3% (higher than 84% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)6.5Medium
Exploit odds (30 days)2.3%top 16.4% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

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.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
AlmaLinux:9edk2-aarch6420240524-6.el9_5ALSA-2024:9088
AlmaLinux:9edk2-ovmf20240524-6.el9_5ALSA-2024:9088
AlmaLinux:9edk2-tools20240524-6.el9_5ALSA-2024:9088
AlmaLinux:9edk2-tools-doc20240524-6.el9_5ALSA-2024:9088
AlmaLinux:9openssl1:3.0.7-27.el9ALSA-2024:2447
AlmaLinux:9openssl-devel1:3.0.7-27.el9ALSA-2024:2447
AlmaLinux:9openssl-libs1:3.0.7-27.el9ALSA-2024:2447
AlmaLinux:9openssl-perl1:3.0.7-27.el9ALSA-2024:2447
Alpine:v3.20openssl3.1.4-r3ALPINE-CVE-2023-6129
Alpine:v3.21openssl3.1.4-r3ALPINE-CVE-2023-6129
Alpine:v3.22openssl3.1.4-r3ALPINE-CVE-2023-6129
Alpine:v3.23openssl3.1.4-r3ALPINE-CVE-2023-6129
Alpine:v3.24openssl3.1.4-r3ALPINE-CVE-2023-6129
Debian:12openssl3.0.13-1~deb12u1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-6129
Debian:13openssl3.1.5-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-6129
Debian:14openssl3.1.5-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-6129
Rocky Linux:9edk20:20240524-6.el9_5.3RLSA-2024:9088
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSopenssl3.0.2-0ubuntu1.14USN-6622-1
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSopenssl3.0.2-0ubuntu1.14UBUNTU-CVE-2023-6129
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSopenssl3.0.10-1ubuntu4UBUNTU-CVE-2023-6129

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
OpenSSL OpenSSL 3.2.0 – before 3.2.13.1.0 – before 3.1.53.0.0 – before 3.0.13

Weakness: CWE-440 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H

References