CVE-2024-5535

NameCVE-2024-5535
DescriptionIssue summary: Calling the OpenSSL API function SSL_select_next_proto with an empty supported client protocols buffer may cause a crash or memory contents to be sent to the peer. Impact summary: A buffer overread can have a range of potential consequences such as unexpected application beahviour or a crash. In particular this issue could result in up to 255 bytes of arbitrary private data from memory being sent to the peer leading to a loss of confidentiality. However, only applications that directly call the SSL_select_next_proto function with a 0 length list of supported client protocols are affected by this issue. This would normally never be a valid scenario and is typically not under attacker control but may occur by accident in the case of a configuration or programming error in the calling application. The OpenSSL API function SSL_select_next_proto is typically used by TLS applications that support ALPN (Application Layer Protocol Negotiation) or NPN (Next Protocol Negotiation). NPN is older, was never standardised and is deprecated in favour of ALPN. We believe that ALPN is significantly more widely deployed than NPN. The SSL_select_next_proto function accepts a list of protocols from the server and a list of protocols from the client and returns the first protocol that appears in the server list that also appears in the client list. In the case of no overlap between the two lists it returns the first item in the client list. In either case it will signal whether an overlap between the two lists was found. In the case where SSL_select_next_proto is called with a zero length client list it fails to notice this condition and returns the memory immediately following the client list pointer (and reports that there was no overlap in the lists). This function is typically called from a server side application callback for ALPN or a client side application callback for NPN. In the case of ALPN the list of protocols supplied by the client is guaranteed by libssl to never be zero in length. The list of server protocols comes from the application and should never normally be expected to be of zero length. In this case if the SSL_select_next_proto function has been called as expected (with the list supplied by the client passed in the client/client_len parameters), then the application will not be vulnerable to this issue. If the application has accidentally been configured with a zero length server list, and has accidentally passed that zero length server list in the client/client_len parameters, and has additionally failed to correctly handle a "no overlap" response (which would normally result in a handshake failure in ALPN) then it will be vulnerable to this problem. In the case of NPN, the protocol permits the client to opportunistically select a protocol when there is no overlap. OpenSSL returns the first client protocol in the no overlap case in support of this. The list of client protocols comes from the application and should never normally be expected to be of zero length. However if the SSL_select_next_proto function is accidentally called with a client_len of 0 then an invalid memory pointer will be returned instead. If the application uses this output as the opportunistic protocol then the loss of confidentiality will occur. This issue has been assessed as Low severity because applications are most likely to be vulnerable if they are using NPN instead of ALPN - but NPN is not widely used. It also requires an application configuration or programming error. Finally, this issue would not typically be under attacker control making active exploitation unlikely. The FIPS modules in 3.3, 3.2, 3.1 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue. Due to the low severity of this issue we are not issuing new releases of OpenSSL at this time. The fix will be included in the next releases when they become available.
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)
ReferencesDLA-3942-1, DLA-3942-2, ELA-1256-1
Debian Bugs1074487

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
openssl (PTS)jessie, jessie (lts)1.0.1t-1+deb8u22vulnerable
stretch (security)1.1.0l-1~deb9u6vulnerable
stretch (lts), stretch1.1.0l-1~deb9u10vulnerable
buster, buster (lts)1.1.1n-0+deb10u7fixed
buster (security)1.1.1n-0+deb10u6vulnerable
bullseye1.1.1w-0+deb11u1vulnerable
bullseye (security)1.1.1w-0+deb11u2fixed
bookworm3.0.15-1~deb12u1fixed
bookworm (security)3.0.14-1~deb12u2vulnerable
sid, trixie3.3.2-2fixed
openssl1.0 (PTS)stretch (security)1.0.2u-1~deb9u7vulnerable
stretch (lts), stretch1.0.2u-1~deb9u10vulnerable

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
opensslsourcebuster1.1.1n-0+deb10u7ELA-1256-1
opensslsourcebullseye1.1.1w-0+deb11u2DLA-3942-2
opensslsourcebookworm3.0.15-1~deb12u1
opensslsource(unstable)3.3.2-11074487
openssl1.0source(unstable)(unfixed)

Notes

https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20240627.txt
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/2ebbe2d7ca8551c4cb5fbb391ab9af411708090e
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/c6e1ea223510bb7104bf0c41c0c45eda5a16b718
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/fc8ff75814767d6c55ea78d05adc72cd346d0f0a
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/a210f580f450bbd08fac85f06e27107b8c580f9b
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/0d883f6309b6905d29ffded6d703ded39385579c
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/9925c97a8e8c9887765a0979c35b516bc8c3af85
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/e10a3a84bf73a3e6024c338b51f2fb4e78a3dee9
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/238fa464d6e38aa2c92af70ef9580c74cff512e4
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/de71058567b84c6e14b758a383e1862eb3efb921
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/214c724e00d594c3eecf4b740ee7af772f0ee04a
[stretch] - openssl <ignored> (Minor issue, tests accompanying change too difficult to backport)
[jessie] - openssl <ignored> (Minor issue, tests accompanying change too difficult to backport)
[stretch] - openssl1.0 <ignored> (Minor issue, tests accompanying change too difficult to backport)
The fix and accompanying tests backport cleanly to buster but
not beyond; you can backport them, but they don't pass,
seemingly for non-trivial reasons. (I only tried backporting to
stretch, but there's no reason to think it would be any more
possible for older releases.) The vulnerability can only result
from an unlikely programming error, so it is not worth more time.

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