CVE-2022-24404 in Air Interface Encryption (Tetraburst)
Summary
by MITRE • 10/25/2023
Lack of cryptographic integrity check on TETRA air-interface encrypted traffic. Since a stream cipher is employed, this allows an active adversary to manipulate cleartext data in a bit-by-bit fashion.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/11/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2022-24404 represents a critical weakness in the TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) air-interface encryption protocol that fundamentally undermines the security assurances typically expected from cryptographic systems. This flaw specifically affects the integrity protection mechanisms implemented within the TETRA communication standard, which is widely used by public safety organizations, emergency services, and government agencies for secure voice and data communications across Europe and other regions. The TETRA standard employs stream cipher encryption to protect traffic between mobile stations and base stations, but the absence of proper cryptographic integrity checks creates a significant attack surface that adversaries can exploit to manipulate transmitted data without detection.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from the implementation of a stream cipher without integrated authentication mechanisms, placing the system at risk of active man-in-the-middle attacks where malicious actors can modify encrypted traffic in transit. Stream ciphers generate a keystream that is XORed with plaintext to produce ciphertext, but when integrity checks are absent, attackers can manipulate the ciphertext in a bit-by-bit fashion to alter cleartext data without breaking the encryption itself. This allows adversaries to inject malicious commands, modify emergency response communications, or alter critical operational data while maintaining the appearance of legitimate encrypted traffic. The vulnerability specifically aligns with CWE-310, which addresses cryptographic weaknesses related to the lack of integrity protection in cryptographic systems, and represents a fundamental failure in the cryptographic protocol design that violates core security principles.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends far beyond simple data manipulation, as it compromises the fundamental trust assumptions that secure communication systems rely upon for critical infrastructure protection. Emergency services and public safety organizations that depend on TETRA for their communications may face scenarios where false emergency alerts are injected, critical operational commands are altered, or sensitive information is corrupted during transmission. The attack surface is particularly concerning given that TETRA systems are often deployed in environments where communication integrity is paramount, such as first responder networks, military communications, and critical infrastructure protection systems. This vulnerability enables adversaries to perform sophisticated attacks that can disrupt emergency response operations, potentially leading to life-threatening consequences, while remaining undetected by standard monitoring systems that rely on the assumption that encrypted traffic maintains its integrity.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2022-24404 must address both immediate operational concerns and long-term architectural improvements to cryptographic system design. Organizations should implement additional integrity verification mechanisms at network boundaries, deploy network monitoring solutions specifically designed to detect anomalous traffic patterns that may indicate integrity violations, and consider temporary workarounds such as network segmentation or the use of alternative secure communication channels. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of implementing authenticated encryption modes such as AES-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305, which provide both confidentiality and integrity protection simultaneously. From an ATT&CK perspective, this vulnerability maps to techniques involving credential access through network protocol manipulation and privilege escalation via data injection attacks, highlighting the need for comprehensive security architectures that protect against both passive and active threats in critical communication systems.