CVE-2023-46129
Published: 31 October 2023
Summary
CVE-2023-46129 is a high-severity Use of Hard-coded Cryptographic Key (CWE-321) vulnerability in Linuxfoundation Nats-Server. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, ranked at the 35.2th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-2780
Vulnerability details
NATS.io is a high performance open source pub-sub distributed communication technology, built for the cloud, on-premise, IoT, and edge computing. The cryptographic key handling library, nkeys, recently gained support for encryption, not just for signing/authentication. This is used in nats-server…
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2.10 (Sep 2023) and newer for authentication callouts. In nkeys versions 0.4.0 through 0.4.5, corresponding with NATS server versions 2.10.0 through 2.10.3, the nkeys library's `xkeys` encryption handling logic mistakenly passed an array by value into an internal function, where the function mutated that buffer to populate the encryption key to use. As a result, all encryption was actually to an all-zeros key. This affects encryption only, not signing. FIXME: FILL IN IMPACT ON NATS-SERVER AUTH CALLOUT SECURITY. nkeys Go library 0.4.6, corresponding with NATS Server 2.10.4, has a patch for this issue. No known workarounds are available. For any application handling auth callouts in Go, if using the nkeys library, update the dependency, recompile and deploy that in lockstep.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Supply chain protection includes scrutiny of cryptographic implementations, reducing hard-coded keys planted by untrusted vendors.
Functional and assurance requirements specified in acquisition can prohibit hard-coded cryptographic keys in delivered products.
Proper key establishment and management processes directly preclude embedding static cryptographic keys in source code or binaries.
Approved PKI issuance and trust stores replace ad-hoc or hard-coded keys with properly managed, signed certificates.
Assessments can uncover and prevent suppliers from shipping components that contain hard-coded cryptographic keys.