Vault Key Sealed With SHA1 PCRs
The measured boot solution implemented in EVE OS leans on a PCR locking mechanism.
Different parts of the system update different PCR values in the TPM, resulting in a unique value for each PCR entry.
These PCRs are then used in order to seal/unseal a key from the TPM which is used to encrypt/decrypt the “vault” directory.
This “vault” directory is the most sensitive point in the system and as such, its content should be protected.
This mechanism is noted in Zededa’s documentation as the “measured boot” mechanism, designed to protect said “vault”.
The code that’s responsible for generating and fetching the key from the TPM assumes that SHA256 PCRs are used in order to seal/unseal the key, and as such their presence is being checked.
The issue here is that the key is not sealed using SHA256 PCRs, but using SHA1 PCRs. This leads to several issues:
• Machines that have their SHA256 PCRs enabled but SHA1 PCRs disabled, as well as not sealing their keys at all, meaning the “vault” is not protected from an attacker.
• SHA1 is considered insecure and reduces the complexity level required to unseal the key in machines which have their SHA1 PCRs enabled.
An attacker can very easily retrieve the contents of the “vault”, which will effectively render the “measured boot” mechanism meaningless.
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).
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edge_virtualization_engine | Linuxfoundation | * | 9.5.0 (excluding) |
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.