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CERT Advisory CA-2000-18 PGP May Encrypt Data With Unauthorized ADKs
Original release date: August 24, 2000
Last revised: --
Source: CERT/CC
A complete revision history is at the end of this file.
Systems Affected
* PGP versions 5.5.x through 6.5.3, domestic and international
Overview
Additional Decryption Keys (ADKs) is a feature introduced into PGP
(Pretty Good Privacy) versions 5.5.x through 6.5.3 that allows
authorized extra decryption keys to be added to a user's public key
certificate. However, an implementation flaw in PGP allows unsigned
ADKs which have been maliciously added to a certificate to be used for
encryption.
Data encrypted with PGP 5.5.x through 6.5.3 using a modified
certificate will generate ciphertext encrypted with the ADK subject to
the conditions list in the impact section. The attacker who modified
the certificate can obtain the plaintext from this ciphertext.
PGP does not correctly detect this form of certificate modification,
because it fails to check if the ADK is stored in the signed (hashed)
portion of the public certificate. As a result normal methods for
evaluating the legitimacy of a public certificate (fingerprint
verification) are not sufficient for users of vulnerable versions of
PGP.
I. Description
A serious problem in the handling of certificates when encrypting with
PGP versions 5.5.x through 6.5.3 has recently been discovered by Ralf
Senderek. A detailed description of his research and conclusions can
be found at
[25]http://senderek.de/security/key-experiments.html
This advisory refers to "PGP certificates", which most users would
refer to as a "PGP keys". PGP certificates are the files used to store
and exchange keys. A certificate contains one or more keys, as well as
other information such as the creation time, signatures by other keys,
and "additional decryption keys".
An Additional Decryption Key (ADK) is a mechanism by which a second
decryption key can be associated with a user's primary key in a
certificate. All data encrypted for the primary key would also be
encrypted with the second key. This configuration might be used, for
example, in environments where data encrypted with an individual's key
also needs to be available to their employer.
The ADK feature is intended to only be available on those certificates
where the user specifically consented to having an additional key
associated with theirs. However, because of an implementation flaw in
some versions of PGP, ADKs added to a victim's certificate by an
attacker may be used for encryption in addition to the victim's key
without their consent.
Since a user's public key certificate is often widely distributed, an
attacker could make this modification to a specific copy of the
certificate without the legitimate user's knowledge. When a vulnerable
version of PGP uses the modified certificate for encryption, it fails
to detect that the ADK is contained in the unsigned portion of the
certificate. Because PGP does not report an invalid signature, senders
using the modified certificate have no way to detect the modification
without complicated manual inspection.
No legitimately produced PGP certificate will exhibit this
vulnerability, nor is this an inherent weakness in the ADK
functionality. Your exposure to this vulnerability is independent of
whether or not you legitimately employ ADKs.
The PGP Software Development Kit (PGP SDK) has this vulnerability,
implying that PGP plugins and other PGP enabled applications may be
vulnerable as well. We will provide additional information as it
becomes available.
II. Impact
Attackers who are able to modify a victim's public certificate may be
able to recover the plaintext of any ciphertext sent to the victim
using the modified certificate.
For this vulnerability to be exploited, the following conditions must
hold
* the sender must be using a vulnerable version of PGP
* the send must be encrypting data with a certificate modified by
the attacker
* the sender must acknowledge a warning dialog that an ADK is
associated with the certificate
* the sender have the key for the bogus ADK already on their local
keyring
* the bogus ADK must be signed certificate by a CA that the sender
trusts
* the attacker be able to obtain the ciphertext sent from the sender
to the victim
Taken together, these factors limit reasonable exploitation of this
vulnerability to those situations in which the key identified as the
ADK is known valid key. This might occur when the attacker is an
insider known to the victim, but is unlikely to occur if the attacker
is a completely unrelated third party.
Viewing the keys in a GUI interface clearly shows that an ADK is
associated with a given recipient, as shown in this [26]image.
Since the key associated with the ADK is clearly listed as one of the
recipients of the ciphertext, it is likely that the sender might
notice this and be able to identify the attacker.
The recipient may use any type of PGP key, including RSA and
Diffie-Hellman. The version of PGP used by the recipient has no impact
on the attack.
III. Solution
Apply a patch
Network Associates has produced a new version of PGP 6.5 which
corrects this vulnerability by requiring that the ADK be included in
the signed portion of the certificate.
Appendix A contains information provided by vendors for this advisory.
We will update the appendix as we receive more information. If you do
not see your vendor's name, the CERT/CC did not hear from that vendor.
Please contact your vendor directly.
Check certificates for ADKs before adding them to a keyring.
Users of PGP who want to ensure that they are not using a modified
certificate should check for the existence of ADKs when adding new
keys to their keyring. Certificates that do not have ADKs are not
vulnerable to this problem. Certificates which do have ADKs may be
legitimate or modified and should be confirmed using an out-of-band
communication.
Users of PGP 6.x for Windows and MacOS can test for the presence of
ADKs in a certificate by right clicking on the certificate and
selecting "Key Properties". If the ADK tab is present, the key has one
or more ADKs and might be a malicious certificate. We are not aware of
a way to identify ADKs in the UNIX command line version of PGP 5.x or
6.x.
Users of GnuPG can test for certificates with ADKs by running the
command
gpg --list-packet
Certificates with legitimate ADKs will contain in the output
hashed subpkt 10 len 23 (additional recipient request)
while those missing the "hashed" keyword
subpkt 10 len 23 (additional recipient request)
appear to indicate maliciously modified certificates.
Make a reliable copy of your public certificate publicly available.
Since the recipient of messages encrypted with a modified certificate
cannot prevent the plaintext from being recovered by the attacker,
their best course of action is to ensure that senders are able to
easily obtain legitimate copies of their public certificate.
Until this problem has been widely corrected, you may wish to make
your legitimate certificate available in a location that is strongly
authenticated using a different technology, or to make it available in
more than one place.
For example, the CERT/CC PGP certificate does NOT contain any ADKs,
and a legitimate version can be obtained for our SSL secured web site
at
[27]https://www.cert.org/pgp/cert_pgp_key.asc
You may also want to check that your public certificate has not been
modified on the public certificate servers. Changes are likely to be
made to the popular PGP certificate servers to detect and reject
invalid certificates that attempt to exploit this vulnerability.
Appendix A. Vendor Information
Network Associates, Inc.
We at NAI/PGP Security regret this important bug in the ADK feature
that has been described on various Internet postings today (Thursday
24 Aug). We were made aware of this bug in PGP early this morning.
We are responding as fast as we can, and expect to have new 6.5.x
releases out to fix this bug late Thursday evening. The MIT web site
should have a new PGP 6.5.x freeware release early Friday, and the
NAI/PGP web site should have patches out for the commercial releases
at about the same time. As of this afternoon (Thursday), the PGP key
server at PGP already filters out keys with the bogus ADK packets. We
expect to have fixes available for the other key servers that run our
software by tomorrow. We have also alerted the other vendors that make
PGP key server software to the problem, and expect Highware/Veridis in
Belgium to have their key servers filtering keys the same way by
Friday.
The fixes that we are releasing for the PGP client software filters
out the offending ADK packets. We already warn the users whenever they
are about to use an ADK, even in the normal case.
We will have new information as soon as it becomes available at
http://www.pgp.com.
Philip Zimmermann
prz@pgp.com
19:00 PDT Thursday 24 Aug 2000
A signed version of this statement is available at
[28]CA-2000-18/pgp.asc
_________________________________________________________________
The CERT Coordination Center thanks Ralf Senderek for bringing this
problem to light and Network Associates for developing a solution and
assisting in the preparation of this advisory.
_________________________________________________________________
Authors: Cory Cohen, Shawn Hernan, Jeff Havrilla, and Jeff Lanza.
Graphics developed by Matt DeSantis. [29]Feedback on this advisory is
appreciated.
______________________________________________________________________
This document is available from:
[30]http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2000-18.html
______________________________________________________________________
CERT/CC Contact Information
Email: [31]cert@cert.org
Phone: +1 412-268-7090 (24-hour hotline)
Fax: +1 412-268-6989
Postal address:
CERT Coordination Center
Software Engineering Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890
U.S.A.
CERT personnel answer the hotline 08:00-20:00 EST(GMT-5) / EDT(GMT-4)
Monday through Friday; they are on call for emergencies during other
hours, on U.S. holidays, and on weekends.
Using encryption
We strongly urge you to encrypt sensitive information sent by email.
Our public PGP key is available from
[32]http://www.cert.org/CERT_PGP.key
If you prefer to use DES, please call the CERT hotline for more
information.
Getting security information
CERT publications and other security information are available from
our web site
[33]http://www.cert.org/
To be added to our mailing list for advisories and bulletins, send
email to [34]cert-advisory-request@cert.org and include SUBSCRIBE
your-email-address in the subject of your message.
* "CERT" and "CERT Coordination Center" are registered in the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office.
______________________________________________________________________
NO WARRANTY
Any material furnished by Carnegie Mellon University and the Software
Engineering Institute is furnished on an "as is" basis. Carnegie
Mellon University makes no warranties of any kind, either expressed or
implied as to any matter including, but not limited to, warranty of
fitness for a particular purpose or merchantability, exclusivity or
results obtained from use of the material. Carnegie Mellon University
does not make any warranty of any kind with respect to freedom from
patent, trademark, or copyright infringement.
_________________________________________________________________
[35]Conditions for use, disclaimers, and sponsorship information
Copyright 2000 Carnegie Mellon University.
Revision History
August 24, 2000: Initial release
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