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quic-go's path validation mechanism can be exploited to cause denial of service

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jan 10, 2024 in quic-go/quic-go • Updated Feb 21, 2024

Package

gomod github.com/quic-go/quic-go (Go)

Affected versions

= 0.40.0
>= 0.39.0, < 0.39.4
>= 0.38.0, < 0.38.2
< 0.37.7

Patched versions

0.40.1
0.39.4
0.38.2
0.37.7

Description

An attacker can cause its peer to run out of memory sending a large number of PATH_CHALLENGE frames. The receiver is supposed to respond to each PATH_CHALLENGE frame with a PATH_RESPONSE frame. The attacker can prevent the receiver from sending out (the vast majority of) these PATH_RESPONSE frames by collapsing the peers congestion window (by selectively acknowledging received packets) and by manipulating the peer's RTT estimate.

I published a more detailed description of the attack and its mitigation in this blog post: https://seemann.io/posts/2023-12-18-exploiting-quics-path-validation/

There's no way to mitigate this attack, please update quic-go to a version that contains the fix.

References

@marten-seemann marten-seemann published to quic-go/quic-go Jan 10, 2024
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jan 10, 2024
Reviewed Jan 10, 2024
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jan 10, 2024
Last updated Feb 21, 2024

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
High
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
High

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:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H

EPSS score

0.098%
(42nd percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2023-49295

GHSA ID

GHSA-ppxx-5m9h-6vxf

Source code

Credits

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