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🛡️ CVE-2024-36121 — netty-incubator-codec-ohttp

🟡 CVSS 5.9 — Medium ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-190 NVD
5.9
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

BoringSSLAEADContext in Netty Repeats Nonces

Summary

BoringSSLAEADContext keeps track of how many OHTTP responses have been sent and uses this sequence number to calculate the appropriate nonce to use with the encryption algorithm.

Unfortunately, two separate errors combine which would allow an attacker to cause the sequence number to overflow and thus the nonce to repeat.

Details

1. There is no overflow detection or enforcement of the maximum sequence value. (This is a missed requirement from the draft Chunked Oblivious OHTTP RFC and so should be inherited from the HPKE RFC 9180, Section 5.2).

2. The sequence number (seq) is stored as 32-bit int which is relatively easy to overflow.

https://github.com/netty/netty-incubator-codec-ohttp/blob/1ddadb6473cd3be5491d114431ed4c1a9f316001/codec-ohttp-hpke-classes-boringssl/src/main/java/io/netty/incubator/codec/hpke/boringssl/BoringSSLAEADContext.java#L112-L114

Impact

If the BoringSSLAEADContext is used to encrypt more than 2^32 messages then the AES-GCM nonce will repeat.

Repeating a nonce with AES-GCM results in both confidentiality and integrity compromise of data encrypted with the associated key.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is high, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. A user must be tricked into taking some action. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality low, integrity high, availability none.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N

  • Attack vector: Network — reachable from anywhere that can route to the service.
  • Attack complexity: High — the attacker first has to win a race, learn a secret or otherwise prepare the target.
  • Privileges required: None — an unauthenticated stranger can try it.
  • User interaction: Required — someone has to click, open or visit something.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: Low — limited, and the attacker does not choose what is affected.
  • Integrity impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Availability impact: None.

Weakness class

CVE-2024-36121 is classified as CWE-190: Integer Overflow or Wraparound. Arithmetic produces a value too large for its type and wraps around, so a later size or bounds check passes when it should not.

Affected software

CVE-2024-36121 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • io.netty.incubator:netty-incubator-codec-ohttp (from 0.0.3.Final up to 0.0.11.Final)
  • netty-incubator-codec-ohttp (from 0.0.3 up to 0.0.11)

Timeline and source

Published on 5 June 2024. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from NVD.

References

github.com (Web)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
github.com (Package)
github.com (Web)

Other advisories for this package

io.netty.incubator:netty-incubator-codec-ohttp has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-190: Integer Overflow or Wraparound) in other software:

Details

Severity Medium
CVSS Score 5.9
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N
CWE CWE-190
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2024-06-05
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2024-06-05
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
io.netty.incubator:netty-incubator-codec-ohttp 0.0.3.Final 0.0.11.Final
netty-incubator-codec-ohttp 0.0.3 0.0.11

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