CVE-2017-5461

Description

An out-of-bounds write flaw was found in the way NSS performed certain Base64-decoding operations. An attacker could use this flaw to create a specially crafted certificate which, when parsed by NSS, could cause it to crash or execute arbitrary code, using the permissions of the user running an application compiled against the NSS library.

Statement

The security flaw exists in NSS library Base64 encoder/decoder code. Any application which uses NSS library to parse base64 encoded data could possibly be affected by the flaw. For example:

  1. Servers compiled against NSS which parse untrusted certificates or any other base64 encoded data from its users.

  2. Utilities like curl etc which use NSS to parse user provided base64 encoded certificates.

  3. Applications like Firefox which use NSS to parse client-certificates before passing them to the web server.

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 Score9.89.8N/A
Attack VectorNetworkNetworkN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredNoneNoneN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityHighHighN/A
Integrity ImpactHighHighN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank the Mozilla project for reporting this issue. Upstream acknowledges Ronald Crane as the original reporter.

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