Category
Security
Release Phase
Resolved
Bug Id
6602801
ProductSolaris 10 Operating System
Date of Resolved Release03-Dec-2008
A Security Vulnerability in the OpenSSL PKCS#11 Engine May Result in Denial of Service (DoS) Due to a Corrupted Session Cache
1. Impact
A security vulnerability in the OpenSSL PKCS#11 engine as shipped with
Solaris 10 may affect applications which make use of this engine. The
exact impact will vary depending on the application. This vulnerabiltiy
may allow a local or remote unprivileged user to cause certain
cryptographic operations within the application to fail (namely
RSA_sign and RSA_verify), which is a type of Denial of Service (DoS).
For example, if the OpenSSL PKCS#11 engine is used for SSL processing
(for example, in the Apache webserver) it will result in SSL
connections being dropped in the SSL handshake phase, thereby causing a
Denial Of Service (DoS) due to a corrupted session cache.
2. Contributing Factors
This issue can occur in the following releases:
SPARC Platform
- Solaris 10 without patch 139459-01
x86 Platform
- Solaris 10 without patch 138863-02
Notes:
1. Solaris 8 and 9 and OpenSolaris are not impacted by this issue
since they do not ship with the OpenSSL PKCS#11 engine.
2. This issue only impacts applications making use of the OpenSSL
PKCS#11 engine. The exact method for determining whether an application
is making use of this functionality will vary depending on the
application.
3. Symptoms
The symptoms will vary depending on the application. For example, if
the OpenSSL PKCS#11 engine is used for SSL processing, failed SSL
handshakes may be observed as in the following example (from the Apache
debug log file):
[Thu Sep 06 08:28:05 2008] [info] [client 192.0.2.1]
SSL library error 1 in handshake (server ssl-server.example.com:443)
[Thu Sep 06 08:28:05 2008] [info] SSL Library Error:
336105650 error:140890B2:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_CLIENT_CERTIFICATE:no certificate returned
[Thu Sep 06 08:28:05 2008] [info] SSL Library Error:
2148044919 error:80089077:lib(128):PK11_DESTROY_OBJECT:C_DestroyObject failed
[Thu Sep 06 08:28:05 2008] [info] [client 192.0.2.1]
Connection closed to child 126 with abortive shutdown (server ssl-server.example.com:443)
4. Workaround
Until patches can be applied, sites may wish to disable the OpenSSL
PKCS#11 engine altogether or just for RSA/DSA/DH functions (if
possible) so that crypto processing will be done only via native
OpenSSL routines. This may degrade the performance depending on how the
engine is used and on the hardware crypto providers present in the
system.
The method for doing this will vary depending on the application, and
the documentation should be consulted for more details.
For example, to disable the OpenSSL PKCS#11 engine in the Apache web
server (see apache(1M)), comment out the following line from the SSL
configuration file and restart the Webserver:
SSLCryptoDevice "pkcs11"
For Apache server shipped with Solaris 10, this directive is configured
in '/etc/apache/httpd.conf' or '/etc/apache2/ssl.conf'.
5. Resolution
This issue is addressed in the following releases:
SPARC Platform
- Solaris 10 with patch 139459-01 or later
x86 Platform
- Solaris 10 with patch 138863-02 or later
For more information
on Security Sun Alerts, see 1009886.1.
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References
139459-01
138863-02
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