CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-43630

Use of Weak Hash

Published: Sep 20, 2023 | Modified: Nov 21, 2024
CVSS 3.x
8.8
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

PCR14 is not in the list of PCRs that seal/unseal the “vault” key, but due to the change that was implemented in commit “7638364bc0acf8b5c481b5ce5fea11ad44ad7fd4”, fixing this issue alone would not solve the problem of the config partition not being measured correctly.

Also, the “vault” key is sealed/unsealed with SHA1 PCRs instead of SHA256. This issue was somewhat mitigated due to all of the PCR extend functions updating both the values of SHA256 and SHA1 for a given PCR ID.

However, due to the change that was implemented in commit “7638364bc0acf8b5c481b5ce5fea11ad44ad7fd4”, this is no longer the case for PCR14, as the code in “measurefs.go” explicitly updates only the SHA256 instance of PCR14, which means that even if PCR14 were to be added to the list of PCRs sealing/unsealing the “vault” key, changes to the config partition would still not be measured.

An attacker could modify the config partition without triggering the measured boot, this could result in the attacker gaining full control over the device with full access to the contents of the encrypted “vault”

Weakness

The product uses an algorithm that produces a digest (output value) that does not meet security expectations for a hash function that allows an adversary to reasonably determine the original input (preimage attack), find another input that can produce the same hash (2nd preimage attack), or find multiple inputs that evaluate to the same hash (birthday attack).

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Edge_virtualization_engine Linuxfoundation 9.0.0 (including) 9.5.0 (excluding)

Extended Description

A hash function is defined as an algorithm that maps arbitrarily sized data into a fixed-sized digest (output) such that the following properties hold:

     Building on this definition, a cryptographic hash function must also ensure that a malicious actor cannot leverage the hash function to have a reasonable chance of success at determining any of the following:

What is regarded as “reasonable” varies by context and threat model, but in general, “reasonable” could cover any attack that is more efficient than brute force (i.e., on average, attempting half of all possible combinations). Note that some attacks might be more efficient than brute force but are still not regarded as achievable in the real world. Any algorithm does not meet the above conditions will generally be considered weak for general use in hashing. In addition to algorithmic weaknesses, a hash function can be made weak by using the hash in a security context that breaks its security guarantees. For example, using a hash function without a salt for storing passwords (that are sufficiently short) could enable an adversary to create a “rainbow table” [REF-637] to recover the password under certain conditions; this attack works against such hash functions as MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-2.

Potential Mitigations

  • Use an adaptive hash function that can be configured to change the amount of computational effort needed to compute the hash, such as the number of iterations (“stretching”) or the amount of memory required. Some hash functions perform salting automatically. These functions can significantly increase the overhead for a brute force attack compared to intentionally-fast functions such as MD5. For example, rainbow table attacks can become infeasible due to the high computing overhead. Finally, since computing power gets faster and cheaper over time, the technique can be reconfigured to increase the workload without forcing an entire replacement of the algorithm in use.
  • Some hash functions that have one or more of these desired properties include bcrypt [REF-291], scrypt [REF-292], and PBKDF2 [REF-293]. While there is active debate about which of these is the most effective, they are all stronger than using salts with hash functions with very little computing overhead.
  • Note that using these functions can have an impact on performance, so they require special consideration to avoid denial-of-service attacks. However, their configurability provides finer control over how much CPU and memory is used, so it could be adjusted to suit the environment’s needs.

References