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Fencer Intel
low 2.0

GHSA-6hxq-p678-4hr2 json

SimpleWebAuthn: Registration verification does not sufficiently ensure that attestation certificates chain to a trust anchor

published 4mo ago modified 2mo ago

cvss
2.0
version 4.0, the maintainers
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
—
no score, EPSS covers CVEs only
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

## Summary `validateCertificatePath()` does not verify that an attestation's certificate chain actually terminates at a configured trust anchor. When walking the chain it stops at the first self-signed certificate it finds (which could be user-supplied), and exits early.

This happens before the configured Apple/Google/etc trust anchor (which is concatenated to the end of the chain) is reached.

A user can therefore register a credential and have the server accept it as if it were backed by a genuine Apple / Android SafetyNet / Yubikey / etc.

## Details `packages/server/src/helpers/validateCertificatePath.ts`:

The configured trust anchor is appended to the end of the untrusted chain (line **83**):

```ts const x5cWithTrustAnchor = x5cCertsParsed.concat([anchor]); ```

The walk then verifies each cert was signed by the next, but breaks on the first self-signed cert (lines **104–116**):

```ts if (issuer.subject === issuer.issuer) { // Root cert detected, make sure it signed itself const issuerSignedIssuer = await issuer.verify( { publicKey: issuer.publicKey, signatureOnly: true }, WebCrypto, ); if (!issuerSignedIssuer) { throw new InvalidSubjectAndIssuer(); } break; // <-- exits before the appended trust anchor is ever checked if user supplied self-signed cert comes first } ```

The success condition is therefore "the certs form an internally-consistent chain ending in some self-signed cert" Rather than "the chain terminates at one of the configured trust anchors."

## Exploit shape

``` attacker sends: x5c = [ forgedLeaf (signed by attacker root), attackerSelfSignedRoot ]

library builds: [ forgedLeaf, attackerSelfSignedRoot, <configured Apple/Google/etc root> ]

walk: forgedLeaf -> attackerSelfSignedRoot (verifies, attacker controls both) attackerSelfSignedRoot is self-signed -> break attackerSelfSignedRoot -> configured root (NEVER CHECKED) ```

`return true`. The configured anchor never gets checked.

As far as observed, all attestation enforcement uses validateCertificatePath when using MDS etc.

Patch / fix

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CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
the maintainers 4.0 2.0 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:A/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
npm @simplewebauthn/server
<13.3.2
13.3.2

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-295 Improper Certificate Validation
  • CWE-296 Improper Following of a Certificate's Chain of Trust

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

The maintainers of MasterKale/SimpleWebAuthn published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.