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Security Advisory

OPENSSL – CVE-2021-3711
Published: September 24, 2021
Last Update: September 24, 2021
Summary

In August 2021, a vulnerability in OpenSSL was disclosed [1] that can lead to a buffer overflow when EVP_PKEY_decrypt() is called to decrypt SM2 encrypted data. The following vulnerability may affect the data plane of ACOS devices and is addressed in this document.

Item Score
# Vulnerability ID Source Score Summary
1 CVE-2021-3711 CVSS 3.0 9.8 Critical openssl: SM2 Decryption Buffer Overflow[2]
Affected Releases

The table below indicates releases of ACOS exposed to this vulnerability and ACOS releases that address them. ACOS release families not indicated below are unaffected by these vulnerabilities.

Customers using affected ACOS releases can overcome vulnerability exposures by updating to the indicated resolved release. If the table does not list a corresponding resolved or unaffected release, then no ACOS release update is currently available.

Releases Affected Releases Resolved or Unaffected
5.0.0 – 5.2.1-P2 5.2.1-P3
Workarounds and Mitigations

None

Software Updates

Software updates that address these vulnerabilities are or will be published at the following URL: http://www.a10networks.com/support/axseries/software-downloads

Vulnerability Details

The following table shares brief descriptions for the vulnerabilities addressed in this document.

Vulnerability ID Vulnerability Description
CVE-2021-3711

In order to decrypt SM2 encrypted data an application is expected to call the API function EVP_PKEY_decrypt(). Typically an application will call this function twice. The first time, on entry, the "out" parameter can be NULL and, on exit, the "outlen" parameter is populated with the buffer size required to hold the decrypted plaintext. The application can then allocate a sufficiently sized buffer and call EVP_PKEY_decrypt() again, but this time passing a non-NULL value for the "out" parameter. A bug in the implementation of the SM2 decryption code means that the calculation of the buffer size required to hold the plaintext returned by the first call to EVP_PKEY_decrypt() can be smaller than the actual size required by the second call. This can lead to a buffer overflow when EVP_PKEY_decrypt() is called by the application a second time with a buffer that is too small. A malicious attacker who is able present SM2 content for decryption to an application could cause attacker chosen data to overflow the buffer by up to a maximum of 62 bytes altering the contents of other data held after the buffer, possibly changing application behaviour or causing the application to crash. The location of the buffer is application dependent but is typically heap allocated. Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1l (Affected 1.1.1-1.1.1k).

Acknowledgements

None

Modification History
Revision Date Description
1 September 24, 2021

Initial Publication


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SSL – CVE-2021-3711