FreeRDP before 3.28.0 (affected <=3.27.1) contains a heap-based buffer overflow in crypto_rsa_common() (libfreerdp/crypto/crypto.c). The function writes the modular-exponentiation result into the callers output buffer via BN_bn2bin() and only afterward checks output_length > out_length, so out-of-bounds bytes are written before the bounds check. On the server side, when a client selects RDP Standard Security, the encrypted client random is decrypted into a fixed 32-byte buffer. Because the server publishes its RSA public key, an unauthenticated attacker can forge a ciphertext whose decrypted value is up to the full modulus length (e.g. 256 bytes for RSA-2048), overflowing the 32-byte heap buffer by up to ~224 attacker-controlled bytes pre-authentication, resulting in denial of service.
Weakness
A heap overflow condition is a buffer overflow, where the buffer that can be overwritten is allocated in the heap portion of memory, generally meaning that the buffer was allocated using a routine such as malloc().
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freerdp | Freerdp | * | 3.28.0 (excluding) |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | RedHat | freerdp-2:3.10.3-12.el10_2.8 | * |
| Freerdp3 | Ubuntu | noble | * |
| Freerdp3 | Ubuntu | resolute | * |
| Freerdp3 | 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].