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OpenSSL Analysis Paper

Chelsea Hitt

University of San Diego

CSOL 560

01 May 2017
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On 16 February 2017, during a renegotiation handshake if the Encrypt-Then-Mac

extension is negotiated where it was not in the original handshake (or vice-versa) then this can
cause OpenSSL to crash (dependent on ciphersuite). Both clients and servers are affected
(OpenSSL, 2017). The problem was caused by changing the flag indicating whether to use ETM
or not immediately on negotiation of ETM, rather than at CCS. Therefore, during a renegotiation,
if the ETM state is changing (usually due to a change of ciphersuite), then an error/crash will
occur. Due to the fact that there are separate CCS messages for read and write we actually now
need two flags to determine whether to use ETM or not (Red Hat Bugzilla , 2017). A remote
authenticated user can cause the target service to crash. A remote authenticated user can trigger a
crash during a renegotiate handshake and cause the target service to crash, depending on the
selected cipher suite. Negotiating the Encrypt-Then-Mac extension when the original handshake
did not include the extension can trigger this flaw. Negotiating without the Encrypt-Then-Mac
extension when the original handshake included the extension can also trigger this flaw (Security
Tracker, 2017).
This issue was said to be fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.0e. This particular issue affected: 1.1.0d,
1.1.0c, 1.1.0b, 1.1.0a, and 1.1.0 (OpenSSL, 2017). This issue does not affect OpenSSL version
1.0.2 (Red Hat Bugzilla , 2017).
Ultimately goals should be to modernize the OpenSSL codebase to make it easier to
audit, understand and repair. Apply best-practice development processes: Code Review,
Frequent releases, Open development process, Remove obsolete or broken features and operating
system support, and use and encourage the incorporation of secure programming interfaces in
operating systems. Provide secure alternatives on operating systems that do not yet have secure
programming interfaces available (LibreSSL, 2017).
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References
LibreSSL. (2017, APR 11). LibreSSL Goals. Retrieved from LibreSSL:
https://www.libressl.org/goals.html
OpenSSL. (2017, FEB 16). Vulnerabilities. Retrieved from OpenSSL Cryptography and
SSL/TLS Toolkit: https://www.openssl.org/news/vulnerabilities.html
Red Hat Bugzilla . (2017, FEB 13). Bug 1421695 - (CVE-2017-3733) CVE-2017-3733 openssl:
Encrypt- Then-Mac renegotiation crash . Retrieved from Red Hat Bugzilla :
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2017-3733
Security Tracker. (2017, FEB 16). Security Tracker Archives. Retrieved from Security Tracker:
http://securitytracker.com/id/1037846