Improper Certificate Validation
CVE-2002-0862
Summary
The (1) CertGetCertificateChain, (2) CertVerifyCertificateChainPolicy, and (3) WinVerifyTrust APIs within the CryptoAPI for Microsoft products including Microsoft Windows 98 through XP, Office for Mac, Internet Explorer for Mac, and Outlook Express for Mac, do not properly verify the Basic Constraints of intermediate CA-signed X.509 certificates, which allows remote attackers to spoof the certificates of trusted sites via a man-in-the-middle attack for SSL sessions, as originally reported for Internet Explorer and IIS.
- MEDIUM
- NETWORK
- NONE
- PARTIAL
- PARTIAL
- PARTIAL
CWE-295 - Improper Certificate Validation
The authenticity component of a web system stems from the ability to validate “Digital certificates”, which (i) establish trust between two or more entities sharing data over a network; (ii) ensure data at rest and transit is secure from unauthorized access; and (iii) check the identity of the actors that interact with the system. An application with absent or ineffective certificate validation mechanisms allows malicious users, impersonating trusted hosts, to manipulate the communication path between the client and the host, resulting in unauthorized access to data and to the application’s internal environment, and potentially enabling man-in-the-middle attacks.
References
Advisory Timeline
- Published