GHSA-72p8-v4hg-v45p
Weak private key generation in SSH.NET
Packages
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
During an **X25519** key exchange, the client’s private is generated with [**System.Random**](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.random):
```cs
var rnd = new Random();
_privateKey = new byte[MontgomeryCurve25519.PrivateKeySizeInBytes];
rnd.NextBytes(_privateKey);
```
Source: [KeyExchangeECCurve25519.cs](https://github.com/sshnet/SSH.NET/blob/bc99ada7da3f05f50d9379f2644941d91d5bf05a/src/Renci.SshNet/Security/KeyExchangeECCurve25519.cs#L51)
Source commit: https://github.com/sshnet/SSH.NET/commit/b58a11c0da55da1f5bad46faad2e9b71b7cb35b3
[**System.Random**](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.random) is not a cryptographically secure random number generator, it must therefore not be used for cryptographic purposes.
### Impact
When establishing an SSH connection to a remote host, during the X25519 key exchange, the private key is generated with
a weak random number generator whose seed can be bruteforced. This allows an attacker able to eavesdrop the
communications to decrypt them.
### Workarounds
To ensure you're not affected by this vulnerability, you can disable support for `curve25519-sha256` and `[email protected]` key exchange algorithms by invoking the following method before a connection is established:
```cs
private static void RemoveUnsecureKEX(BaseClient client)
{
client.ConnectionInfo.KeyExchangeAlgorithms.Remove("curve25519-sha256");
client.ConnectionInfo.KeyExchangeAlgorithms.Remove("[email protected]");
}
```
### Thanks
This issue was initially reported by **Siemens AG, Digital Industries**, shortly followed by @yaumn-synacktiv.
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/sshnet/SSH.NET/security/advisories/GHSA-72p8-v4hg-v45p
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-29245
- https://github.com/sshnet/SSH.NET/commit/03c6d60736b8f7b42e44d6989a53f9b644a091fb
- https://github.com/sshnet/SSH.NET/commit/f1f273cf349532b9d41c1de51d3b83a9accedc88
- https://github.com/sshnet/SSH.NET
- https://github.com/sshnet/SSH.NET/blob/bc99ada7da3f05f50d9379f2644941d91d5bf05a/src/Renci.SshNet/Security/KeyExchangeECCurve25519.cs#L51
- https://github.com/sshnet/SSH.NET/releases/tag/2020.0.2