GitHub Advisoryadvisory · crates.io
GHSA-r38m-44fw-h886 AEADs/ascon-aead: Plaintext exposed in decrypt_in_place_detached even on tag verification failure
MEDIUM
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