Spring Security versions 4.2.x prior to 4.2.12, 5.0.x prior to 5.0.12, and 5.1.x prior to 5.1.5 contain an insecure randomness vulnerability when using SecureRandomFactoryBean#setSeed to configure a SecureRandom instance. In order to be impacted, an honest application must provide a seed and make the resulting random material available to an attacker for inspection.
Weakness
The product uses insufficiently random numbers or values in a security context that depends on unpredictable numbers.
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring_security | Vmware | 4.2.0 (including) | 4.2.12 (excluding) |
| Spring_security | Vmware | 5.0.0 (including) | 5.0.12 (excluding) |
| Spring_security | Vmware | 5.1.0 (including) | 5.1.5 (excluding) |
Potential Mitigations
- Use a well-vetted algorithm that is currently considered to be strong by experts in the field, and select well-tested implementations with adequate length seeds.
- In general, if a pseudo-random number generator is not advertised as being cryptographically secure, then it is probably a statistical PRNG and should not be used in security-sensitive contexts.
- Pseudo-random number generators can produce predictable numbers if the generator is known and the seed can be guessed. A 256-bit seed is a good starting point for producing a “random enough” number.
Related Attack Patterns
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/112.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/485.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/59.html