A stack buffer overflow vulnerability exists in wolfSSLs PKCS7 SignedData encoding functionality. In wc_PKCS7_BuildSignedAttributes(), when adding custom signed attributes, the code passes an incorrect capacity value (esd->signedAttribsCount) to EncodeAttributes() instead of the remaining available space in the fixed-size signedAttribs[7] array. When an application sets pkcs7->signedAttribsSz to a value greater than MAX_SIGNED_ATTRIBS_SZ (default 7) minus the number of default attributes already added, EncodeAttributes() writes beyond the array bounds, causing stack memory corruption. In WOLFSSL_SMALL_STACK builds, this becomes heap corruption. Exploitation requires an application that allows untrusted input to control the signedAttribs array size when calling wc_PKCS7_EncodeSignedData() or related signing functions.
Weakness
A stack-based buffer overflow condition is a condition where the buffer being overwritten is allocated on the stack (i.e., is a local variable or, rarely, a parameter to a function).
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wolfssl | Wolfssl | 5.5.0 (including) | 5.9.0 (excluding) |
| Wolfssl | Ubuntu | esm-apps/xenial | * |
| Wolfssl | Ubuntu | upstream | * |
Potential Mitigations
- Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index checking.
- D3-SFCV (Stack Frame Canary Validation) from D3FEND [REF-1334] discusses canary-based detection in detail.
- Run or compile the software using features or extensions that randomly arrange the positions of a program’s executable and libraries in memory. Because this makes the addresses unpredictable, it can prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to exploitable code.
- Examples include Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) [REF-58] [REF-60] and Position-Independent Executables (PIE) [REF-64]. Imported modules may be similarly realigned if their default memory addresses conflict with other modules, in a process known as “rebasing” (for Windows) and “prelinking” (for Linux) [REF-1332] using randomly generated addresses. ASLR for libraries cannot be used in conjunction with prelink since it would require relocating the libraries at run-time, defeating the whole purpose of prelinking.
- For more information on these techniques see D3-SAOR (Segment Address Offset Randomization) from D3FEND [REF-1335].