GHSA-r38m-44fw-h886
AEADs/ascon-aead: Plaintext exposed in decrypt_in_place_detached even on tag verification failure
Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| crates.io | ascon_aead | < 0.4.3 | 0.4.3 |
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
### Summary
In `decrypt_in_place_detached`, the decrypted ciphertext (which is the correct ciphertext) is exposed even if the tag is incorrect.
### Details
This is because in [decrypt_inplace](https://github.com/RustCrypto/AEADs/blob/8cda109f1128c4c7953a0bb0f53e1056d537e462/ascon-aead/src/asconcore.rs#L350-L364) in asconcore.rs, tag verification causes an error to be returned with the plaintext contents still in `buffer`. The root cause of this vulnerability is similar to https://github.com/RustCrypto/AEADs/security/advisories/GHSA-423w-p2w9-r7vq
### PoC
```rust
use ascon_aead::Tag;
use ascon_aead::{Ascon128, Key, Nonce};
use ascon_aead::aead::{AeadInPlace, KeyInit};
fn main() {
let key = Key::<Ascon128>::from_slice(b"very secret key.");
let cipher = Ascon128::new(key);
let nonce = Nonce::<Ascon128>::from_slice(b"unique nonce 012"); // 128-bits; unique per message
let mut buffer: Vec<u8> = Vec::new(); // Buffer needs 16-bytes overhead for authentication tag
buffer.extend_from_slice(b"plaintext message");
// Encrypt `buffer` in-place detached, replacing the plaintext contents with ciphertext
cipher.encrypt_in_place_detached(nonce, b"", &mut buffer).expect("encryption failure!");
// Decrypt `buffer` in-place with the wrong tag, ignoring the decryption error
let _ = cipher.decrypt_in_place_detached(nonce, b"", &mut buffer, Tag::<Ascon128>::from_slice(b"\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00"));
assert_eq!(&buffer, b"plaintext message");
}
```
### Impact
If a program continues to use the result of `decrypt_in_place_detached` after a decryption failure, the result will be unauthenticated. This may permit some forms of chosen ciphertext attacks (CCAs).
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.