OpenSSL 3.0.7 Fixes Critical Vulnerability

OpenSSL has released a new version, 3.0.7 that fixes a Critical Vulnerability from openSSL versions 3.0.0 to 3.0.6. Registered users can download the latest openSSL version from the private account.

The vulnerability is a buffer overflow in the X.509 certificate verification, which is the code used to validate TLS certificates. The vulnerability could potentially be exploited to allow remote code execution via a malicious TLS certificate; however, it requires that the malicious TLS certificate be signed by a trusted CA.

Since certificate verification is typically done on the client side, this vulnerability primarily affects clients not servers. There is a case where servers could be exploited via TLS Client Authentication, which may bypass the CA signing requirements as client certs are usually not required to be signed by a trusted CA. Since client authentication is rare ,and most servers do not have it enabled, server exploitation should be low risk.

Attackers could exploit this vulnerability by directing client to a malicious TLS server which uses a specially crafted certificate to trigger the vulnerability.