OpenSSL up to 3.4.0 RFC7250 Raw Public Key error condition

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, was found in OpenSSL up to 3.4.0. This vulnerability affects unknown code of the component RFC7250 Raw Public Key Handler. Executing a manipulation can lead to error condition. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2024-12797. The attack can be executed remotely. There is not any exploit available. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in OpenSSL up to 3.4.0 and classified as problematic. This vulnerability affects some unknown functionality of the component RFC7250 Raw Public Key Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a error condition vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-392. The product encounters an error but does not provide a status code or return value to indicate that an error has occurred. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality. CVE summarizes:

Issue summary: Clients using RFC7250 Raw Public Keys (RPKs) to authenticate a server may fail to notice that the server was not authenticated, because handshakes don't abort as expected when the SSL_VERIFY_PEER verification mode is set. Impact summary: TLS and DTLS connections using raw public keys may be vulnerable to man-in-middle attacks when server authentication failure is not detected by clients. RPKs are disabled by default in both TLS clients and TLS servers. The issue only arises when TLS clients explicitly enable RPK use by the server, and the server, likewise, enables sending of an RPK instead of an X.509 certificate chain. The affected clients are those that then rely on the handshake to fail when the server's RPK fails to match one of the expected public keys, by setting the verification mode to SSL_VERIFY_PEER. Clients that enable server-side raw public keys can still find out that raw public key verification failed by calling SSL_get_verify_result(), and those that do, and take appropriate action, are not affected. This issue was introduced in the initial implementation of RPK support in OpenSSL 3.2. The FIPS modules in 3.4, 3.3, 3.2, 3.1 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue.

The weakness was released by Apple Inc.. The advisory is shared for download at openssl-library.org. This vulnerability was named CVE-2024-12797 since 12/19/2024. The exploitation appears to be difficult. The attack can be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is required for a successful exploitation. There are neither technical details nor an exploit publicly available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $0-$5k (estimation calculated on 04/10/2026).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 216104 (RHEL 9 : openssl (RHSA-2025:1330)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 3.2.4, 3.3.3 or 3.4.1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 738d4f9fdeaad57660dcba50a619fafced3fd5e9 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at github.com. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (216104) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-1850). Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Xerox FreeFlow Print Server

Productinfo

Type

• Network Encryption Software

Name

• OpenSSL

Version

• 3.2.0
• 3.2.1
• 3.2.2
• 3.2.3
• 3.3.0
• 3.3.1
• 3.3.2
• 3.4.0

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://www.openssl.org/

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Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

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