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Security Flaw Discovered in GPG

WeLikeRoy writes "A serious problem in the use of GPG to verify digital signatures has been discovered, which also affects the use of gpg in email. It is possible for an attacker to take any signed message and inject extra arbitrary data without affecting the signed status of the message. Depending on how gpg is invoked, it may be possible to output just faked data as several variants of this attack have been discovered. All versions of gnupg prior to 1.4.2.2 are affected, and it is thus recommended to update GnuPG as soon as possible to version 1.4.2.2."

9 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Not a fundamental flaw. by aprilsound · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From TFA:
    The attack is to change a standard message to inject faked data (F). A simple case is this: F + O + D + S gpg now happily skips F for verification and does a proper signature verification of D and if this succeeds, prints a positive result. However when asked to output the actual signed data it will output the concatenation of F + D and thus create the impression that both are covered by the signature.

    So this is a simple mistake made by GPG, in an effort to coexist well with email and the like.

    In other words, GPG looks at an email message and sees headers and the like. Of course, the headers were not signed (just the message), so GPG skips them and when it encounters the signed message, it begins to verify the signature.

    So, if you are an attacker, you insert something before or after the signed message, and when GPG goes to verify it, the signed message passes, but GPG nicely prints out the whole message for you, instead of just the signed part. Oops, not a big deal, encryption isn't broken, in fact this is just an application bug.

  2. Aha! by evil+agent · · Score: 5, Funny

    She thought she could get rid of me with that rejection via email. Now I've got reasonable doubt about her feelings. Until I get that court order, of course.

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    End transmission.
  3. Re:Don't forget Win95! by JustOK · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't you think they're smart enough to think that you would think they weren't that stupid?

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    rewriting history since 2109
  4. Re:Double Bag That Burger by TPS+Report · · Score: 5, Funny

    Another good recommendation is to diversify your crypto. Sign/encrypt your data with multiple different crypto algorithms in the same message.

    That's an awesome idea. I'm going to start doing that right now! :P

    This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
    ------=_NextPart_000_0012_01C22048.805E68 00
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Test ------=_
    NextPart_000_0012_01C22048.805E6800 Content-Type:

    application/x-pkcs7-signature; name="smime.p7s"

    Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-Disposition:
    attachment; filename="smime.p7s"</b>
    MIAGCSqGSIb3DQEHAqCAMIAC AQExCzAJBgUrDgMCGgUAMIAGCSqGSIb3DQEHAQAAo
    IIKGDCC Ajww ggGlAhAyUDPPUNFW81yBrWVcT8glMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAgUAMF 8xC
    zAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMRcwFQYD VQQKEw5WZXJpU2lnbiwgSW5jLjE3MDUGA1UECxMuQ
    2xhc3Mg MSBQdWJsaWMgUHJpbWFyeSBDZXJ0 aWZpY2F0aW9uIEF1dGhvcml0eTAeF
    w05NjAxMjkwMDAwMDBa Fw0yMDAxMDcyMzU5NTlaMF8xCzAJ BgNVBAYTAlVTMRcwF
    QYDVQQKEw5WZXJpU2lnbiwgSW5jLjE3 MDUGA1UECxMuQ2xhc3MgMSBQdWJs aWMgU
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    I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven...
  5. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous+Crowhead · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's funny. Back in the day, when Slashdot was cool, almost everyone would know what GPG was. Most of the articles were like this one. Cool stuff about cool technology. Not politics (aside from GNU) and all the other crap like the "new mouse/keyboard techonolgy of the week" adverts that permeates Slashdot these days.

  6. Re:Bug Intentionally Placed? by From+A+Far+Away+Land · · Score: 5, Funny

    Do you suppose the NSA is also responsible for the backdoor exploit on the Goatse guy?

  7. Re:Whew! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have been publishing my GPG key for over a year now and I have yet to have anyone send me an encrypted email. I feel really lonely and unpopular. I'd even read encrypted penis enlargement spam if someone would be thoughtful enough to send me some.

  8. Re:Bug Intentionally Placed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    No that was a widely known and exploited crack.

  9. Re:Double Bag That Burger by LS · · Score: 5, Funny


    How in the F*** did THAT make it through the lameness filters?!

    --
    There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie