Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Aging and Bloated OpenSSL Is Purged of 2 High-Severity Bugs (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the oh-openssl dept.

An anonymous reader cites a story on Ars Technica: Maintainers of the OpenSSL cryptographic library have patched high-severity holes that could make it possible for attackers to decrypt login credentials or execute malicious code on Web servers. The updates were released Tuesday morning for both versions 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 of OpenSSL, which a large portion of the Internet relies on to cryptographically protect sensitive Web and e-mail traffic using the transport layer security protocol. OpenSSL advisories labeled the severity of both vulnerabilities "high," meaning the updates fixing them should be installed as soon as possible. The fixes bring the latest supported versions to 1.0.1t and 1.0.2h. The decryption vulnerability is the result of what cryptographers call a padding oracle weakness, which allows attackers to repeatedly probe an encrypted payload for clues about the plaintext content inside. According to TLS expert Filippo Valsorda, the bug allows for only 16 bytes of encrypted traffic to be recovered, and even then only when an end user sends it repeatedly.

3 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Simple question by jandrese · · Score: 4, Informative

    A few reasons.
    1. LibreSSL has no FIPS mode. FIPS mode is kind of dumb, but it is required in some environments.
    2. LibreSSL was effectively OpenBSD only for some time. The compatibility shims have been written for other oses now I think, but it hasn't been available for as long as you think.
    3. Swapping SSL libraries is a major change, beyond what is appropriate for a point release. Conservative distros 9LTS type distros especially) will be using OpenSSL for years to come because it's too big of a change to attempt outside of a major version bump.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
  2. Re:Simple question by phayes · · Score: 5, Informative

    Add to those reasons the knowledge that the "better alternative" had the same undiscovered bugs and that OpenSSL found them first.

    --
    Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
  3. Re:Simple question by zyche · · Score: 3, Informative

    While that is true to some extent, decisions taken by the LibreSSL team has
    prevented a lot of vulnerabilities.

    Notably, none of the vulnerabilities found in OpenSSL and rated "High" were applicable to LibreSSL.