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Improper Certificate Validation

CVE-2009-2409

Severity Medium
Score 5.1/10

Summary

The Network Security Services (NSS) library before 3.12.3, as used in Firefox; GnuTLS before 2.6.4 and 2.7.4; OpenSSL 0.9.8 through 0.9.8k; and other products support MD2 with X.509 certificates, which might allow remote attackers to spoof certificates by using MD2 design flaws to generate a hash collision in less than brute-force time. NOTE: the scope of this issue is currently limited because the amount of computation required is still large.

  • HIGH
  • 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