FreeS/WAN, Openswan, strongSwan: Vulnerabilities in certificate handling

Security Team Contact Address

Updated June 25, 2004

1. Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Advisory Reference	GLSA 200406-20 / Openswan
Release Date	June 25, 2004
Latest Revision	May 22, 2006: 02
Impact	normal
Exploitable	remote

Package	Vulnerable versions	Unaffected versions	Architecture(s)
net-misc/freeswan	< 2.04-r1	>= 2.04-r1, = 1.99-r1	All supported architectures
net-misc/openswan	< 2.1.4	>= 2.1.4, = 1.0.6_rc1	All supported architectures
net-misc/strongswan	< 2.1.3	>= 2.1.3	All supported architectures
net-misc/super-freeswan	<= 1.99.7.3		All supported architectures

Related bugreports: No related gentoo bugreports

Synopsis

FreeS/WAN, Openswan, strongSwan and Super-FreeS/WAN contain two bugs when authenticating PKCS#7 certificates. This could allow an attacker to authenticate with a fake certificate.

2. Impact Information

Background

FreeS/WAN, Openswan, strongSwan and Super-FreeS/WAN are Open Source implementations of IPsec for the Linux operating system. They are all based on the discontinued FreeS/WAN project.

Description

All these IPsec implementations have several bugs in the verify_x509cert() function, which performs certificate validation, that make them vulnerable to malicious PKCS#7 wrapped objects.

Impact

With a carefully crafted certificate payload an attacker can successfully authenticate against FreeS/WAN, Openswan, strongSwan or Super-FreeS/WAN, or make the daemon go into an endless loop.

3. Resolution Information

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the latest available version.

Resolution

All FreeS/WAN 1.9x users should upgrade to the latest stable version:

Code Listing 3.1: Resolution

# emerge sync

# emerge -pv "=net-misc/freeswan-1.99-r1"
# emerge "=net-misc/freeswan-1.99-r1"

All FreeS/WAN 2.x users should upgrade to the latest stable version:

Code Listing 3.2: Resolution

# emerge sync

# emerge -pv ">=net-misc/freeswan-2.04-r1"
# emerge ">=net-misc/freeswan-2.04-r1"

All Openswan 1.x users should upgrade to the latest stable version:

Code Listing 3.3: Resolution

# emerge sync

# emerge -pv "=net-misc/openswan-1.0.6_rc1"
# emerge "=net-misc/openswan-1.0.6_rc1"

All Openswan 2.x users should upgrade to the latest stable version:

Code Listing 3.4: Resolution

# emerge sync

# emerge -pv ">=net-misc/openswan-2.1.4"
# emerge ">=net-misc/openswan-2.1.4"

All strongSwan users should upgrade to the latest stable version:

Code Listing 3.5: Resolution

# emerge sync

# emerge -pv ">=net-misc/strongswan-2.1.3"
# emerge ">=net-misc/strongswan-2.1.3"

All Super-FreeS/WAN users should migrate to the latest stable version of Openswan. Note that Portage will force a move for Super-FreeS/WAN users to Openswan.

Code Listing 3.6: Resolution

# emerge sync

# emerge -pv "=net-misc/openswan-1.0.6_rc1"
# emerge "=net-misc/openswan-1.0.6_rc1"

4. References