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GHSA-vq4h-9ghm-qmrr BIT-vault-2023-25000 CVE-2023-25000 GO-2023-1709

HashiCorp Vault's implementation of Shamir's secret sharing vulnerable to cache-timing attacks

Medium Go
Severity
4.7 / 10
Medium · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS)
0.21%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 11.25% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-203 Observable Discrepancy
CWE-208 Observable Timing Discrepancy
Fix
1.11.9
Upgrade github.com/hashicorp/vault to this version or later

Description

HashiCorp Vault's implementation of Shamir's secret sharing used precomputed table lookups, and was vulnerable to cache-timing attacks. An attacker with access to, and the ability to observe a large number of unseal operations on the host through a side channel may reduce the search space of a brute force effort to recover the Shamir shares. Fixed in Vault 1.13.1, 1.12.5, and 1.11.9.

Affected versions

Go

PackageVulnerableFixed in
github.com/hashicorp/vault
< 1.11.9
1.11.9
github.com/hashicorp/vault
>= 1.12.0, < 1.12.5
1.12.5
github.com/hashicorp/vault
>= 1.13.0, < 1.13.1
1.13.1
github.com/hashicorp/vault
< 1.11.9
>= 1.12.0, < 1.12.5
>= 1.13.0, < 1.13.1
1.11.9
1.12.5
1.13.1

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.

github.com/hashicorp/vault Go → 1.11.9

go
go get github.com/hashicorp/vault@v1.11.9 && go mod tidy

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 4.7

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

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

Weakness

CWE-203: Observable Discrepancy

The product behaves differently or sends different responses under different circumstances in a way that is observable to an unauthorized actor.

How to prevent it
  • Architecture and Design: Compartmentalize the system to have "safe" areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area. Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.
  • Implementation: Ensure that error messages only contain minimal details that are useful to the intended audience and no one else. The messages need to strike the balance between being too cryptic (which can confuse users) or being too detailed (which may reveal more than intended). The messages should not reveal the methods that were used to determine the error. Attackers can use detailed information to refine or optimize their original attack, thereby increasing their chances of success. If errors must be captured in some detail, record them in log messages, but consider what could occur if the log messages can be viewed by attackers. Highly sensitive information such as passwords should never be saved to log files. Avoid inconsistent messaging that might accidentally tip off an attacker about internal state, such as whether a user account exists or not.

CWE-208: Observable Timing Discrepancy

Two separate operations in a product require different amounts of time to complete, in a way that is observable to an actor and reveals security-relevant information about the state of the product, such as whether a particular operation was successful or not.

References

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
  3. Latest EPSS score
AdvisorySeverityWhy it's related
GHSA-88v5-9hxc-f85r
HashiCorp Vault Vulnerable to Denial-of-Service via Unauthenticated Root Token Generation/Rekey Operations
High Also affects github.com/hashicorp/vault
GHSA-8r5m-3f66-qpr3
HashiCorp Vault has Server-Side Request Forgery in ACME Challenge Validation via Attacker-Controlled DNS
High Also affects github.com/hashicorp/vault
GHSA-72gw-fmmr-c4r4
HashiCorp Vault May Expose Tokens to Auth Plugins Due to Incorrect Header Sanitization
High Also affects github.com/hashicorp/vault
GHSA-m2w4-8ggf-rj47
HashiCorp Vault has a KVv2 Metadata and Secret Deletion Policy Bypass that leads to Denial-of-Service
High Also affects github.com/hashicorp/vault
GHSA-vp5w-xcfc-73wf
Hashicorp Vault and Vault Enterprise vulnerable to a denial of service when processing JSON
High Also affects github.com/hashicorp/vault
GHSA-9g4h-h484-3578
HashiCorp Vault and Vault Enterprise's AWS Auth method may be susceptible to authentication bypass
High Also affects github.com/hashicorp/vault
GHSA-8f82-53h8-2p34
HashiCorp Vault Community Edition Denial of Service Though Complex JSON Payloads
High Also affects github.com/hashicorp/vault
GHSA-7rx2-769v-hrwf
HashiCorp Vault ldap auth method may not have correctly enforced MFA
High Also affects github.com/hashicorp/vault

Credits: Giuseppe Cocomazzi

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