Skip to main content

Improper Certificate Validation

CVE-2021-44533

Severity Medium
Score 5.3/10

Summary

Node.js < 12.22.9, < 14.18.3, < 16.13.2, and < 17.3.1 did not handle multi-value Relative Distinguished Names correctly. Attackers could craft certificate subjects containing a single-value Relative Distinguished Name that would be interpreted as a multi-value Relative Distinguished Name, for example, in order to inject a Common Name that would allow bypassing the certificate subject verification.Affected versions of Node.js that do not accept multi-value Relative Distinguished Names and are thus not vulnerable to such attacks themselves. However, third-party code that uses node's ambiguous presentation of certificate subjects may be vulnerable.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • LOW
  • 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