Medium severity · published Jan 9, 2024
CVE-2023-6129
POLY1305 MAC implementation corrupts vector registers on PowerPC
6.5
CVSS
2.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Issue summary: The POLY1305 MAC (message authentication code) implementation
contains a bug that might corrupt the internal state of applications running
on PowerPC CPU based platforms if the CPU provides vector instructions.
Impact summary: If an attacker can influence whether the POLY1305 MAC
algorithm is used, the application state might be corrupted with various
application dependent consequences.
The POLY1305 MAC (message authentication code) implementation in OpenSSL for
PowerPC CPUs restores the contents of vector registers in a different order
than they are saved. Thus the contents of some of these vector registers
are corrupted when returning to the caller. The vulnerable code is used only
on newer PowerPC processors supporting the PowerISA 2.07 instructions.
The consequences of this kind of internal application state corruption can
be various - from no consequences, if the calling application does not
depend on the contents of non-volatile XMM registers at all, to the worst
consequences, where the attacker could get complete control of the application
process. However unless the compiler uses the vector registers for storing
pointers, the most likely consequence, if any, would be an incorrect result
of some application dependent calculations or a crash leading to a denial of
service.
The POLY1305 MAC algorithm is most frequently used as part of the
CHACHA20-POLY1305 AEAD (authenticated encryption with associated data)
algorithm. The most common usage of this AEAD cipher is with TLS protocol
versions 1.2 and 1.3. If this cipher is enabled on the server a malicious
client can influence whether this AEAD cipher is used. This implies that
TLS server applications using OpenSSL can be potentially impacted. However
we are currently not aware of any concrete application that would be affected
by this issue therefore we consider this a Low severity security issue.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
Low
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)2.3% · higher than 83% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
OP
OpenSSL · OpenSSL
3.2.0 before 3.2.1; 3.1.0 before 3.1.5; 3.0.0 before 3.0.13 · source: vendor, NVD
SS
SIMATIC S7-1500 TM MFP - GNU/Linux subsystem · Siemens
before V1.1.1 · source: CISA
SN
SINEC NMS · Siemens
before V3.0 SP1 · source: CISA
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-6129
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-6129
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/050d26383d4e264966fb83428e72d5d48f402d35
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/5b139f95c9a47a55a0c54100f3837b1eee942b04
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/f3fc5808fe9ff74042d639839610d03b8fdcc015
Vendor Advisory
https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20240109.txt
www.openwall.com
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/11/1
security.netapp.com
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20240216-0009/
More from OpenSSL
7.5
CVE-2014-0160
OpenSSL Information Disclosure Vulnerability
9.8
CVE-2026-63073
Untrusted Sender DN Used as Format String in CMP Response Validation
9.8
CVE-2026-31789
Heap Buffer Overflow in Hexadecimal Conversion
9.8
CVE-2022-2274
RSA implementation bug in AVX512IFMA instructions
9.8
CVE-2021-3711
SM2 Decryption Buffer Overflow
