Vulnerability · Published Oct 11, 2022 · Assigned by openssl

CVE-2022-3358Using a Custom Cipher with NID_undef may lead to NULL encryption

High 7.5

In plain English

A high-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 4.0% (higher than 91% of all known vulnerabilities). Ready-made attack tooling exists: Metasploit. Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS NVD)7.5High
Exploit odds (30 days)4.0%top 9.3% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsnot in CISA KEV
Attack tooling1Metasploit

Official description

OpenSSL supports creating a custom cipher via the legacy EVP_CIPHER_meth_new() function and associated function calls. This function was deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0 and application authors are instead encouraged to use the new provider mechanism in order to implement custom ciphers. OpenSSL versions 3.0.0 to 3.0.5 incorrectly handle legacy custom ciphers passed to the EVP_EncryptInit_ex2(), EVP_DecryptInit_ex2() and EVP_CipherInit_ex2() functions (as well as other similarly named encryption and decryption initialisation functions). Instead of using the custom cipher directly it incorrectly tries to fetch an equivalent cipher from the available providers. An equivalent cipher is found based on the NID passed to EVP_CIPHER_meth_new(). This NID is supposed to represent the unique NID for a given cipher. However it is possible for an application to incorrectly pass NID_undef as this value in the call to EVP_CIPHER_meth_new(). When NID_undef is used in this way the OpenSSL encryption/decryption initialisation function will match the NULL cipher as being equivalent and will fetch this from the available providers. This will succeed if the default provider has been loaded (or if a third party provider has been loaded that offers this cipher). Using the NULL cipher means that the plaintext is emitted as the ciphertext. Applications are only affected by this issue if they call EVP_CIPHER_meth_new() using NID_undef and subsequently use it in a call to an encryption/decryption initialisation function. Applications that only use SSL/TLS are not impacted by this issue. Fixed in OpenSSL 3.0.6 (Affected 3.0.0-3.0.5).

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
AlmaLinux:9openssl1:3.0.7-6.el9_2ALSA-2023:2523
AlmaLinux:9openssl-devel1:3.0.7-6.el9_2ALSA-2023:2523
AlmaLinux:9openssl-libs1:3.0.7-6.el9_2ALSA-2023:2523
AlmaLinux:9openssl-perl1:3.0.7-6.el9_2ALSA-2023:2523
Alpine:v3.20openssl3.0.6-r0ALPINE-CVE-2022-3358
Alpine:v3.21openssl3.0.6-r0ALPINE-CVE-2022-3358
Alpine:v3.22openssl3.0.6-r0ALPINE-CVE-2022-3358
Alpine:v3.23openssl3.0.6-r0ALPINE-CVE-2022-3358
Alpine:v3.24openssl3.0.6-r0ALPINE-CVE-2022-3358
Debian:12openssl3.0.7-1DEBIAN-CVE-2022-3358
Debian:13openssl3.0.7-1DEBIAN-CVE-2022-3358
Debian:14openssl3.0.7-1DEBIAN-CVE-2022-3358
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSopenssl3.0.2-0ubuntu1.7USN-5710-1
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSopenssl3.0.2-0ubuntu1.7UBUNTU-CVE-2022-3358

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
OpenSSL OpenSSL Fixed in OpenSSL 3.0.6 (Affected 3.0.0-3.0.5)

References