Resource leakage when decoding certificates and keys

Description

The OPENSSL_LH_flush() function, which empties a hash table, contains a bug that breaks reuse of the memory occuppied by the removed hash table entries. This function is used when decoding certificates or keys. If a long lived process periodically decodes certificates or keys its memory usage will expand without bounds and the process might be terminated by the operating system causing a denial of service. Also traversing the empty hash table entries will take increasingly more time. Typically such long lived processes might be TLS clients or TLS servers configured to accept client certificate authentication. The function was added in the OpenSSL 3.0 version thus older releases are not affected by the issue. Fixed in OpenSSL 3.0.3 (Affected 3.0.0,3.0.1,3.0.2).

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Source code
Not specified
Published (advisory)
2022-05-04 00:00:22 UTC
Updated
2023-08-17 05:02:27 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2022-06-17 00:05:28 UTC
NVD published
2022-05-03

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.33% 55.93%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
7.5 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-404 Improper Resource Shutdown or Release
CWE-459 Incomplete Cleanup

Credits

  • pinkforest (analyst)

Affected packages (1)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
rust openssl-src >= 300.0.0, < 300.0.6 300.0.6

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence