GitHub Advisoryadvisory · crates.io

GHSA-r38m-44fw-h886 AEADs/ascon-aead: Plaintext exposed in decrypt_in_place_detached even on tag verification failure

MEDIUM Published 2025-03-03 Modified 2025-03-03 Official page ↗
Aliases
CVE-2025-27498
Ecosystem
crates.io
Packages
ascon_aead
Severity
Moderate
CVSS vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:L/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Weaknesses
CWE-347
Reviewed
2025-03-03

Affected packages

• crates.io ascon_aead: < 0.4.3 → fixed in 0.4.3

Description

Summary In `decrypt_in_place_detached`, the decrypted ciphertext (which is the correct ciphertext) is exposed even if the tag is incorrect. Details This is because in decrypt_inplace in asconcore.rs, tag verification causes an error to be returned with the plaintext contents still in `buffer`. The root cause of this vulnerability is similar to https://github.com/RustCrypto/AEADs/security/advisories/GHSA-423w-p2w9-r7vq PoC ```rust use ascon_aead::Tag; use ascon_aead::{Ascon128, Key, Nonce}; use ascon_aead::aead::{AeadInPlace, KeyInit}; fn main() { let key = Key::::from_slice(b"very secret key."); let cipher = Ascon128::new(key); let nonce = Nonce::::from_slice(b"unique nonce 012"); // 128-bits; unique per message let mut buffer: Vec = Vec::new(); // Buffer needs 16-bytes overhead for authentication tag buffer.extend_from_slice(b"plaintext message"); // Encrypt `buffer` in-place detached, replacing the plaintext contents with ciphertext cipher.encrypt_in_place_detached(nonce, b"", &mut buffer).expect("encryption failure!"); // Decrypt `buffer` in-place with the wrong tag, ignoring the decryption error let _ = cipher.decrypt_in_place_detached(nonce, b"", &mut buffer, Tag::::from_slice(b"\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00")); assert_eq!(&buffer, b"plaintext message"); } ``` Impact If a program continues to use the result of `decrypt_in_place_detached` after a decryption failure, the result will be unauthenticated. This may permit some forms of chosen ciphertext attacks (CCAs).

Related

Alias · CVE (1)

  • CVE-2025-27498 aes-gcm is a pure Rust implementation of the AES-GCM. vulnerability

Weakness · CWE (1)

  • CWE-347 Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature weakness

References