CVE-2023-6237: Excessive time spent checking invalid RSA public keys
Issue summary: Checking excessively long invalid RSA public keys may take
a long time.
Impact summary: Applications that use the function EVP_PKEY_public_check()
to check RSA public keys may experience long delays. Where the key that
is being checked has been obtained from an untrusted source this may lead
to a Denial of Service.
When function EVP_PKEY_public_check() is called on RSA public keys,
a computation is done to confirm that the RSA modulus, n, is composite.
For valid RSA keys, n is a product of two or more large primes and this
computation completes quickly. However, if n is an overly large prime,
then this computation would take a long time.
An application that calls EVP_PKEY_public_check() and supplies an RSA key
obtained from an untrusted source could be vulnerable to a Denial of Service
attack.
The function EVP_PKEY_public_check() is not called from other OpenSSL
functions however it is called from the OpenSSL pkey command line
application. For that reason that application is also vulnerable if used
with the '-pubin' and '-check' options on untrusted data.
The OpenSSL SSL/TLS implementation is not affected by this issue.
The OpenSSL 3.0 and 3.1 FIPS providers are affected by this issue.
Security readout for executives and security teams
CVE-2023-6237 can make some OpenSSL-based software spend excessive time checking malformed RSA public keys. The business impact is denial of service, not data theft. Exposure depends on whether applications validate untrusted RSA public keys with the affected OpenSSL function or tool options. Likely exposure is narrow: OpenSSL 3.0.0, 3.1.0, and 3.2.0 deployments where code or operations explicitly check untrusted RSA public keys. The OpenSSL 3.0 and 3.1 FIPS providers are affected. TLS services are not affected merely because they use OpenSSL. Treat as a targeted availability risk. Prioritize systems that process customer- or partner-supplied public keys, certificate material, or validation jobs. Routine TLS endpoints are lower priority based on the OpenSSL advisory. Mitigation focus: Upgrade affected OpenSSL branches to vendor-fixed versions where applicable: 3.0.13, 3.1.5, or 3.2.1.; Avoid checking RSA public keys from untrusted sources until patched.; Do not run OpenSSL pkey -pubin -check on untrusted inputs on affected versions..
Prepared
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
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