Vulnerability CVE-2023-4421


Published: 2023-12-12   Modified: 2023-12-14

Description:
The NSS code used for checking PKCS#1 v1.5 was leaking information useful in mounting Bleichenbacher-like attacks. Both the overall correctness of the padding as well as the length of the encrypted message was leaking through timing side-channel. By sending large number of attacker-selected ciphertexts, the attacker would be able to decrypt a previously intercepted PKCS#1 v1.5 ciphertext (for example, to decrypt a TLS session that used RSA key exchange), or forge a signature using the victim's key. The issue was fixed by implementing the implicit rejection algorithm, in which the NSS returns a deterministic random message in case invalid padding is detected, as proposed in the Marvin Attack paper. This vulnerability affects NSS < 3.61.

 References:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1651411
https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2023-53/

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