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Improper Certificate Validation

CVE-2017-15698

Severity Medium
Score 5.9/10

Summary

When parsing the AIA-Extension field of a client certificate, Apache Tomcat Native Connector 1.2.0 to 1.2.14 and 1.1.23 to 1.1.34 did not correctly handle fields longer than 127 bytes. The result of the parsing error was to skip the OCSP check. It was therefore possible for client certificates that should have been rejected (if the OCSP check had been made) to be accepted. Users not using OCSP checks are not affected by this vulnerability.

  • HIGH
  • NETWORK
  • HIGH
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • NONE

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