CVE-2021-4238

Description

A flaw was found in goutils where randomly generated alphanumeric strings contain significantly less entropy than expected. Both the RandomAlphaNumeric and CryptoRandomAlphaNumeric functions always return strings containing at least one digit from 0 to 9. This issue significantly reduces the amount of entropy generated in short strings by these functions.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score79.19.1
Attack VectorNetworkNetworkNetwork
Attack ComplexityHighLowLow
Privileges RequiredNoneNoneNone
User InteractionNoneNoneNone
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedUnchanged
ConfidentialityHighHighHigh
Integrity ImpactLowNoneNone
Availability ImpactLowHighHigh

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:L

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Red Hat CVSS v3 Score Explanation

The location of the weakened character within a secret is not known in advance. Additionally for an exploitation opportunity to exist, a Red Hat offering must utilize the vulnerable function to create a small secret, which goes against basic security practices. Together these conditions make the attack complexity high.

Availability is low because any full denial of service would be dependent on how the vulnerable functions were used.

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Access Control,Other

Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism; Other

An attacker could guess the random numbers generated and could gain unauthorized access to a system if the random numbers are used for authentication and authorization.

Frequently Asked Questions

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