CVE-2023-22912

An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.9, 1.36.x through 1.38.x before 1.38.5, and 1.39.x before 1.39.1. CheckUser TokenManager insecurely uses AES-CTR encryption with a repeated (aka re-used) nonce, allowing an adversary to decrypt.

Weakness

The product uses insufficiently random numbers or values in a security context that depends on unpredictable numbers.

Affected Software

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

References

• https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T315123