OpenSSL up to 1.1.1v/3.0.10/3.1.2 on 64-bit POLY1305 MAC poly1305-x86_64.pl state issue

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability identified as critical has been detected in OpenSSL up to 1.1.1v/3.0.10/3.1.2 on 64-bit. This affects an unknown part of the file crypto/poly1305/asm/poly1305-x86_64.pl of the component POLY1305 MAC. Performing a manipulation results in state issue. This vulnerability is identified as CVE-2023-4807. There is not any exploit available. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in OpenSSL up to 1.1.1v/3.0.10/3.1.2 on 64-bit (Network Encryption Software). This affects some unknown functionality of the file crypto/poly1305/asm/poly1305-x86_64.pl of the component POLY1305 MAC. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a state issue vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-371. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

Issue summary: The POLY1305 MAC (message authentication code) implementation contains a bug that might corrupt the internal state of applications on the Windows 64 platform when running on newer X86_64 processors supporting the AVX512-IFMA instructions. Impact summary: If in an application that uses the OpenSSL library 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 does not save the contents of non-volatile XMM registers on Windows 64 platform when calculating the MAC of data larger than 64 bytes. Before returning to the caller all the XMM registers are set to zero rather than restoring their previous content. The vulnerable code is used only on newer x86_64 processors supporting the AVX512-IFMA 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 given the contents of the registers are just zeroized so the attacker cannot put arbitrary values inside, 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 and a malicious client can influence whether this AEAD cipher is used by the server. This implies that 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. As a workaround the AVX512-IFMA instructions support can be disabled at runtime by setting the environment variable OPENSSL_ia32cap: OPENSSL_ia32cap=:~0x200000 The FIPS provider is not affected by this issue.

The weakness was released 09/08/2023 as 20230908.txt. The advisory is shared at openssl.org. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2023-4807 since 09/06/2023. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 07/26/2025).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 242760 (NewStart CGSL MAIN 7.02 : tongsuo Vulnerability (NS-SA-2025-0197)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 1.1.1w, 3.0.11 or 3.1.3 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch a632d534c73eeb3e3db8c7540d811194ef7c79ff is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.openssl.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at Tenable (242760). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Network Encryption Software

Name

• OpenSSL

Version

• 1.1.1
• 1.1.1a
• 1.1.1b
• 1.1.1c
• 1.1.1d
• 1.1.1e
• 1.1.1f
• 1.1.1g
• 1.1.1h
• 1.1.1i
• 1.1.1j
• 1.1.1k
• 1.1.1l
• 1.1.1m
• 1.1.1n
• 1.1.1o
• 1.1.1p
• 1.1.1q
• 1.1.1r
• 1.1.1s
• 1.1.1t
• 1.1.1u
• 1.1.1v
• 3.0.0
• 3.0.1
• 3.0.2
• 3.0.3
• 3.0.4
• 3.0.5
• 3.0.6
• 3.0.7
• 3.0.8
• 3.0.9
• 3.0.10
• 3.1.0
• 3.1.1
• 3.1.2

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://www.openssl.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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