CVE-2020-36316
NixOS vulnerability analysis and mitigation

Overview

CVE-2020-36316 affects RELIC versions before 2021-04-03, where a buffer overflow vulnerability exists in PKCS#1 v1.5 signature verification due to the presence of garbage bytes (NVD, CVE).

Technical details

The vulnerability stems from issues in the PKCS#1 v1.5 signature verification code where pad_len can be set to a very small number when given a malformed signature with very short padding. The code doesn't enforce requirements that the padding must be at least 8 bytes long and long enough to prevent extra trailing bytes after the hash value. This can lead to buffer overflow conditions when calculating buffer sizes (GitHub Issue).

Impact

The vulnerability could allow attackers to cause buffer overflow conditions, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution or system crashes. The issue is particularly concerning as it affects the signature verification process, a critical security component (NVD).

Mitigation and workarounds

The vulnerability was fixed in RELIC version 2021-04-03 by inverting the padding check logic and implementing more rigorous validation. Users should upgrade to this version or later to address the vulnerability (GitHub Commit).

Additional resources


SourceThis report was generated using AI

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