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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. Simple question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Why is OpenSSL still being used? LibreSSL is a better alternative that was forked from OpenSSL a couple of years ago. Why is OpenSSL still around?

    1. Re:Simple question by WaffleMonster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is OpenSSL still being used? LibreSSL is a better alternative that was forked from OpenSSL a couple of years ago. Why is OpenSSL still around?

      Why are the majority of bug fixes flowing from OpenSSL to LibreSSL and not the other way around?

  2. Don't hold back by halivar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Tell us how you really feel about OpenSSL.