Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability in Erlang OTP public_key (pubkey_cert and public_key modules) allows a DNS nameConstraints bypass via subject CommonName fallback in TLS hostname verification. Two flaws combine to allow a subordinate CA whose DNS nameConstraints are restricted (e.g. permitted;DNS:allowed.example.com) to issue a leaf certificate that an OTP TLS client accepts as a valid identity for an out-of-scope hostname (e.g. victim.example.com): First, pubkey_cert:validate_names/6 in lib/public_key/src/pubkey_cert.erl only checks SAN DNS entries against nameConstraints. Per RFC 5280, a permitted DNS subtree only restricts certificates that contain a DNS-typed name. A leaf with no subjectAltName therefore trivially satisfies any permitted;DNS:... constraint regardless of its subject commonName. Second, public_key:pkix_verify_hostname/3 in lib/public_key/src/public_key.erl falls back to the subject commonName when no subjectAltName is present, extracting id-at-commonName attributes as presented IDs and matching them against the reference hostname. The strict pkix_verify_hostname_match_fun(https) matcher does not suppress this fallback. The result is that path validation accepts a CN-only leaf under a DNS-constrained intermediate (no SAN means the nameConstraints are not triggered), and hostname verification then accepts it via the CN fallback. The bypass is reachable from stock ssl:connect with verify_peer, a trusted CA, SNI, and the canonical strict https hostname matcher. This issue affects OTP from OTP 19.3 before OTP 26.2.5.21, 27.3.4.12, 28.5.0.1, and 29.0.1 corresponding to public_key from 1.4 before 1.15.1.7, 1.17.1.3, 1.20.3.1, and 1.21.1.
| Métrique | Valeur | Interprétation |
|---|---|---|
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AV (Vecteur d'Attaque)
Attack Vector
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Network (N)
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Exploit possible à distance via réseau (HTTP, API, etc.) |
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AC (Complexité d'Attaque)
Attack Complexity
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High (H)
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Conditions spécifiques doivent être réunies pour exploiter |
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PR (Privilèges Requis)
Privileges Required
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None (N)
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Aucune authentification requise |
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UI (Interaction Utilisateur)
User Interaction
|
Unknown (P)
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Interaction inconnue |
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S (Périmètre)
Scope
|
Unchanged (U)
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Impact reste dans le périmètre du composant compromis |
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C (Impact Confidentialité)
Confidentiality Impact
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High (H)
|
Divulgation totale d'informations |
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I (Impact Intégrité)
Integrity Impact
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High (H)
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Modification totale des données possible |
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A (Impact Disponibilité)
Availability Impact
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None (N)
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Aucune interruption de service |
nameConstraints DNS bypass via subject CommonName fallback in public_key hostname verification