[nsp-sec] Debian to disclose critical bug on Tuesday

[Paul Goyette]

Hmmm, NetBSD issued an advisory on this last week.  It
seems there's an issue in the Montgomery multiply code
and was previously discussed as CVE-2007-3108, and is
fixed in OpenSSL 0.9.8g.

Wondering if this Debian thing is the same one.

Paul Goyette
Juniper Networks Customer Service
JTAC Senior Escalation Engineer
Juniper Security Incident Response Team
PGP Key ID 0x53BA7731 Fingerprint:
  FA29 0E3B 35AF E8AE 6651
  0786 F758 55DE 53BA 7731 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: nsp-security-bounces at puck.nether.net 
> [mailto:nsp-security-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of 
> Florian Weimer
> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 6:42 AM
> To: nsp-security at puck.nether.net
> Subject: [nsp-sec] Debian to disclose critical bug on Tuesday
> 
> ----------- nsp-security Confidential --------
> 
> Hi,
> 
> This is just a heads-up that Debian will publish an advisory about a
> critically flawed random number generator in OpenSSL on Tuesday, May
> 13 2008 (1200 UTC, to be precise).  Debian OpenSSL versions since
> 0.9.8b-1 are affected (including the one in etch), up to and excluding
> 0.9.8g-9 (already in testing/lenny).
> 
> I'm posting this here because one of the applications that is affected
> is OpenSSH.  As a result of the bug in OpenSSL, there is only a
> comparatively small number of OpenSSH host and user keys.  So if you
> use Debian on your workstation, have generated a new user key since
> May 2006, and use that to authenticate to some routers, and those
> routers offer SSH service to the general public, you've got a problem.
> Sorry about that. 8-(
> 
> Practically everything doing cryptography on Debian systems is
> affected, with the exception of GnuPG and GNUTLS- and NSS-based
> software (which includes Exim and Iceweasel né Firefox).  DNSSEC keys,
> Tor keys, OpenVPN keys, the list is pretty long.  It's also possible
> to recover session keys of past OpenSSL-encrypted sessions.  For
> DNSSEC keys and OpenSSL-generated X.509 certificates, there is a
> slightly higher amount of entropy, but not by much.  But OpenVPN keys
> are rather easily predicted, too.
> 
> Network activity to watch for is OpenSSH scans, as usual.  But there's
> a twist because attackers will eventually pick up the key list (yes,
> it's that small, we're currently discussing if we're going to disclose
> the key fingerprints along with the initial advisory), and try
> public-key authentication instead of password guessing.  So if you see
> that in your logs, I'd be interested to know that.
> 
> Please treat the contents of this message confidential until the
> different aspects of the bug have become public knowledge (first and
> foremost, its existance, but also the fact that it's possible to build
> a key list, which is not immediately obvious).
> 
> Florian
> -- 
> Florian Weimer                <fweimer at bfk.de>
> BFK edv-consulting GmbH       http://www.bfk.de/
> Kriegsstraße 100              tel: +49-721-96201-1
> D-76133 Karlsruhe             fax: +49-721-96201-99
> 
> 
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