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GHSA-h5rc-j5f5-3gcm CVE-2025-54804

russh is missing overflow checks during channel windows adjust

Medium crates.io
Severity
6.5 / 10
Medium · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS)
0.42%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 36.22% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-190 Integer Overflow or Wraparound
Fix
0.54.1
Upgrade russh to this version or later

Description

Summary

The channel window adjust message of the SSH protocol is used to track the free space in the receive buffer of the other side of a channel. The current implementation takes the value from the message and adds it to an internal state value. This can result in a integer overflow. If the Rust code is compiled with overflow checks, it will panic. A malicious client can crash a server.

Details

According https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4254#section-5.2, The value must not overflow. The incorrect handling is done in server/encrypted.rs and client/encrypted.rs in the handling of CHANNEL_WINDOW_ADJUST.

let amount = map_err!(u32::decode(&mut r))?;
...
channel.recipient_window_size += amount;

It could be replaced with something like

  if let Some(ref mut channel) = enc.channels.get_mut(&channel_num) {
                        // rfc 4254: The window MUST NOT be increased above 2^32 - 1 bytes.
                        new_size = channel.recipient_window_size.saturating_add(amount);
                        channel.recipient_window_size = new_size;
                    }
...

PoC

A customized client code would be required to send a message with a big value like u32_max. Not done yet.

Impact

This problem seems only critical to a server. One user can crash the server, which might take down the service. A malicious server could also crash a single client, but this seems not very critical.

Affected versions

crates.io

PackageVulnerableFixed in
russh
< 0.54.1
0.54.1

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

russh crates.io → 0.54.1

cargo
cargo update -p russh --precise 0.54.1

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 6.5

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

Weakness

CWE-190: Integer Overflow or Wraparound

The product performs a calculation that can produce an integer overflow or wraparound when the logic assumes that the resulting value will always be larger than the original value. This occurs when an integer value is incremented to a value that is too large to store in the associated representation. When this occurs, the value may become a very small or negative number.

How to prevent it
  • Requirements: Ensure that all protocols are strictly defined, such that all out-of-bounds behavior can be identified simply, and require strict conformance to the protocol.
  • Requirements: Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid. If possible, choose a language or compiler that performs automatic bounds checking.
  • Architecture and Design: Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid [REF-1482]. Use libraries or frameworks that make it easier to handle numbers without unexpected consequences. Examples include safe integer handling packages such as SafeInt (C++) or IntegerLib (C or C++). [REF-106]
  • Implementation: Perform input validation on any numeric input by ensuring that it is within the expected range. Enforce that the input meets both the minimum and maximum requirements for the expected range. Use unsigned integers where possible. This makes it easier to perform validation for integer overflows. When signed integers are required, ensure that the range check includes minimum values as well as maximum values.
  • Implementation: Understand the programming language's underlying representation and how it interacts with numeric calculation (CWE-681). Pay close attention to byte size discrepancies, precision, signed/unsigned distinctions, truncation, conversion and casting between types, "not-a-number" calculations, and how the language handles numbers that are too large or too small for its underlying representation. [REF-7] Also be careful to account for 32-bit, 64-bit, and other potential differences that may affect the numeric representation.
  • Architecture and Design: For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks entirely. Then, these modified values would be submitted to the server.
  • Implementation: Examine compiler warnings closely and eliminate problems with potential security implications, such as signed / unsigned mismatch in memory operations, or use of uninitialized variables. Even if the weakness is rarely exploitable, a single failure may lead to the compromise of the entire system.

References

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
  3. Latest EPSS score
AdvisorySeverityWhy it's related
GHSA-vp5q-ff62-jwqv
russh: Agent server never calls `Agent::confirm`, so keys added with the confirm constraint (`ssh-add -c`) sign without confirmation
High Also affects russh
GHSA-fw5c-8223-6h42
russh: peer-declared zero maximum packet size permanently stalls channel writes (silent AsyncWrite hang)
Medium Also affects russh
GHSA-9wfm-jcj8-jfv9
russh's SSH agent server is susceptible to unbound allocations via repeated SSH_AGENT_CONSTRAIN_CONFIRM messages
Low Also affects russh
GHSA-4p9f-7p9m-5vfg
russh's SSH client is susceptible to unbounded allocations via EXT_INFO packets
Medium Also affects russh
GHSA-4wc5-f2rc-q74m
russh: Unbounded memory allocation in agent protocol server via crafted constraint records
Medium Also affects russh
GHSA-j7h2-66j4-ghjf
A russh SSH server accepts a publickey authentication whose signature uses a different algorithm than the one named in the request
Low Also affects russh
GHSA-g6xm-f9xp-qq35
Russh: Configured server auth-attempt cap is not enforced in the USERAUTH_REQUEST runtime path
Low Also affects russh
GHSA-w3jg-pjxf-73p4
Russh: Missing X25519 zero-point validation in hybrid ML-KEM key exchange
Medium Also affects russh
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