CVE-2024-12797
Issue summary: Clients using RFC7250 Raw Public Keys (RPKs) to authenticate a server may fail to notice that the server was not authenticated, because handshakes don't abort as expected when the SSL_VERIFY_PEER verification mode is set.
Impact summary: TLS and DTLS connections using raw public keys may be vulnerable to man-in-middle attacks when server authentication failure is not detected by clients.
RPKs are disabled by default in both TLS clients and TLS servers. The issue only arises when TLS clients explicitly enable RPK use by the server, and the server, likewise, enables sending of an RPK instead of an X.509 certificate chain. The affected clients are those that then rely on the handshake to fail when the server's RPK fails to match one of the expected public keys, by setting the verification mode to SSL_VERIFY_PEER.
Clients that enable server-side raw public keys can still find out that raw public key verification failed by calling SSL_get_verify_result(), and those that do, and take appropriate action, are not affected. This issue was introduced in the initial implementation of RPK support in OpenSSL 3.2.
The FIPS modules in 3.4, 3.3, 3.2, 3.1 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue.
| Software | From | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
cryptography
|
42.0.0 | 44.0.1 |
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/02/11/3
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/02/11/4
- https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/738d4f9fdeaad57660dcba50a619fafced3fd5e9
- https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/798779d43494549b611233f92652f0da5328fbe7
- https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/87ebd203feffcf92ad5889df92f90bb0ee10a699
- https://github.com/pyca/cryptography/security/advisories/GHSA-79v4-65xg-pq4g
- https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20250211.txt
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20250214-0001/
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A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.
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