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Format string bug in the Redis cache implementation

Moderate
zandbelt published GHSA-55r8-6w97-xxr4 Jul 22, 2021

Package

mod_auth_openidc

Affected versions

<= 2.4.8.4

Patched versions

>= 2.4.9

Description

Impact

When configured to use an unencrypted Redis cache (OIDCCacheEncrypt off, OIDCSessionType server-cache, OIDCCacheType redis), mod_auth_openidc wrongly performed argument interpolation before passing Redis requests to hiredis, which would perform it again and lead to an uncontrolled format string bug.

Initial assessment shows that this bug does not appear to allow gaining arbitrary code execution, but can reliably provoke a denial of service by repeatedly crashing the Apache workers.

Patches

This bug has been corrected by performing argument interpolation only once, using the hiredis API.

Workarounds

If you can't upgrade to mod_auth_openidc 2.4.9, this vulnerability can be mitigated by setting OIDCCacheEncrypt to on, as cache keys are cryptographically hashed before use when this option is enabled.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, you can contact:

  • The original reporters, by sending an email to vulnerability.research [at] sonarsource.com;
  • The maintainers, by opening an issue on this repository.

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

CVE ID

CVE-2021-32785

Weaknesses