CVE-2022-3786

X.509 Email Address Variable Length Buffer Overflow

High · published November 1, 2022

Patch now

High probability of exploitation

CVSS calls it high at 7.5. It sits in the 99.8th percentile for exploit probability.

CVSS v3.1
7.5
EPSS
92%
Percentile
99.8
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

A buffer overrun can be triggered in X.509 certificate verification, specifically in name constraint checking. Note that this occurs after certificate chain signature verification and requires either a CA to have signed a malicious certificate or for an application to continue certificate verification despite failure to construct a path to a trusted issuer. An attacker can craft a malicious email address in a certificate to overflow an arbitrary number of bytes containing the `.' character (decimal 46) on the stack. This buffer overflow could result in a crash (causing a denial of service). In a TLS client, this can be triggered by connecting to a malicious server. In a TLS server, this can be triggered if the server requests client authentication and a malicious client connects.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
7.5 · HIGH
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.92488 · 99.8th percentile
Published
2022-11-01T00:00Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 01 NOV 00:00Z
    X.509 Email Address Variable Length Buffer Overflow
    cvelistv5