CVE-2022-4304
Published: August 31, 2023Last modified: July 22, 2025
Description
A timing based side channel exists in the OpenSSL RSA Decryption implementation which could be sufficient to recover a plaintext across a network in a Bleichenbacher style attack. To achieve a successful decryption an attacker would have to be able to send a very large number of trial messages for decryption. The vulnerability affects all RSA padding modes: PKCS#1 v1.5, RSA-OEAP and RSASVE. For example, in a TLS connection, RSA is commonly used by a client to send an encrypted pre-master secret to the server. An attacker that had observed a genuine connection between a client and a server could use this flaw to send trial messages to the server and record the time taken to process them. After a sufficiently large number of messages the attacker could recover the pre-master secret used for the original connection and thus be able to decrypt the application data sent over that connection.
Severity score breakdown
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Base score | 5.9 |
| Attack Vector | NETWORK |
| Attack complexity | HIGH |
| Privileges required | NONE |
| User interaction | NONE |
| Scope | UNCHANGED |
| Confidentiality | HIGH |
| Integrity impact | NONE |
| Availability impact | NONE |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N |
Status
| Product | Release | Package | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpaquita Linux | 23 LTS | openssl | Not affected (3.0.10-r0) |
| Stream | openssl | Not affected (3.1.2-r0) | |
| Hardened Containers | 23 LTS | openssl | Not affected (3.0.10-r0) |
| Stream | openssl | Not affected (3.1.2-r0) |