3.7 LOW
- CVSS version (CVSS): 3.1
- Attack Vector (AV): Network (N)
- Attack Complexity (AC): High (H)
- Privileges Required (PR): None (N)
- User Interaction (UI): None (N)
- Scope (S): Unchanged (U)
- Confidentiality (C): None (N)
- Integrity (I): Low (L)
- Availability (A): None (N)
- Modified Attack Vector (MAV): Network (N)
- Modified Attack Complexity (MAC): High (H)
- Modified Privileges Required (MPR): None (N)
- Modified User Interaction (MUI): None (N)
- Modified Confidentiality (MC): None (N)
- Modified Scope (MS): Unchanged (U)
- Modified Integrity (MI): Low (L)
- Modified Availability (MA): None (N)
Activity log
- Created suggestion
WireGuard keepalive transport-data messages accepted without Poly1305 authentication
Zephyr's WireGuard implementation in subsys/net/lib/wireguard/wg_crypto.c mishandled keepalive packets. In wg_process_data_message(), any type-4 transport-data message whose payload was exactly 16 bytes (an empty plaintext plus a bare Poly1305 tag, i.e. a keepalive) was accepted and returned immediately, before wg_decrypt_packet() was ever called. The Poly1305 authentication tag was therefore never verified; the only preceding gates were a cleartext receiver-index lookup (get_peer_keypair_for_index() on the attacker-supplied data_hdr->receiver) and a non-cryptographic keypair validity/expiry check. The path is reachable entirely from the network: inbound UDP on the WireGuard port is dispatched by wg_input() to handle_transport_data() and then wg_process_data_message(). The 32-bit receiver index is transmitted in cleartext in WireGuard handshake and data messages, so an on-path observer learns it directly and an off-path attacker can brute-force it against the UDP port. Given an active receiving-valid session for that index, an attacker could send a 16-byte garbage payload and have it accepted without possessing the session key. On acceptance the unauthenticated message caused the management layer to observe a spoofed NET_EVENT_VPN_CONNECTED signal (setting peer->first_valid and notifying any net_mgmt listener) and incremented the keepalive-RX statistic. The impact is limited to integrity of this status signal: no plaintext is decrypted or injected, no key is disclosed, and the early-return path did not update the peer endpoint or liveness timers, so there is no traffic-injection, session-takeover, or availability consequence. The fix removes the pre-decrypt early return so a 16-byte payload flows through wg_decrypt_packet(), which verifies the Poly1305 tag over the empty plaintext, followed by the existing anti-replay check; only an authenticated, non-replayed message is then recognised as a keepalive. Forged keepalives now fail the tag check and are counted as decrypt failures.
References
Affected products
- <4.4.2
Matching in nixpkgs
pkgs.python313Packages.smoke-zephyr
Python utility collection
pkgs.python314Packages.smoke-zephyr
Python utility collection
pkgs.python313Packages.zephyr-python-api
Set of wrappers for Zephyr Scale (TM4J) REST API
pkgs.python314Packages.zephyr-python-api
Set of wrappers for Zephyr Scale (TM4J) REST API
pkgs.python313Packages.zephyr-test-management
Wrappers for both Zephyr Scale and Zephyr Squad (TM4J) REST APIs
Package maintainers
-
@fabaff Fabian Affolter <mail@fabian-affolter.ch>
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@Steinhagen Viorel-Cătălin Răpițeanu <rapiteanu.catalin@gmail.com>