CVE-2024-3596

Public on

Last Modified: UTC

Important Important Impact What does this mean?
9 CVSS v3 Base Score

Description

A vulnerability in the RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) protocol allows attackers to forge authentication responses when the Message-Authenticator attribute is not enforced. This issue arises from a cryptographically insecure integrity check using MD5, enabling attackers to spoof UDP-based RADIUS response packets. This can result in unauthorized access by modifying an Access-Reject response to an Access-Accept response, thereby compromising the authentication process.

Statement

This vulnerability is of Important severity due to its ability to undermine the fundamental security mechanisms of RADIUS-based authentication systems. By exploiting the weak MD5 integrity check, an attacker can forge RADIUS responses, effectively bypassing authentication controls and gaining unauthorized access to network resources. This poses a significant threat to environments relying on RADIUS for user and device authentication, particularly those lacking enforced Message-Authenticator attributes or TLS/DTLS encryption.

There are several preconditions for this attack to be possible:

  • An attacker needs man-in-the-middle network access between the RADIUS client and server
  • The client and server must be using RADIUS/UDP to communicate
  • The attacker needs to be able to trigger a RADIUS client Access-Request ( for example the client is using PAP authentication)

Due to these attack surface limitations, the impact is rated Important. Within Red Hat offerings, this impacts the FreeRADIUS package. This flaw allows a local, unauthenticated attacker to conduct a man-in-the-middle attack to log in as a third party without knowing their credentials. Servers using Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) with required Message-Authenticator attributes or those employing TLS/DTLS encryption are not affected.

Mitigation

Disable the use of RADIUS/UDP and RADIUS/TCP.
RADIUS/TLS or RADIUS/DTLS should be used.

Additional Information

External References

Content from www.cve.org is not included.https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-3596

Content from nvd.nist.gov is not included.https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-3596

Content from datatracker.ietf.org is not included.https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-radext-deprecating-radius/

Content from datatracker.ietf.org is not included.https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2865

Content from networkradius.com is not included.https://networkradius.com/assets/pdf/radius_and_md5_collisions.pdf

Content from w1.fi is not included.https://w1.fi/security/2024-1/hostapd-and-radius-protocol-forgery-attacks.txt

Content from www.blastradius.fail is not included.https://www.blastradius.fail/

Content from www.kb.cert.org is not included.https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/456537

Affected Packages and Issued Red Hat Security Errata

Products / Services Components State Errata
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 freeradius Out of support scope
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extended Lifecycle Support freeradius Fixed RHSA-2024:4911
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extended Lifecycle Support krb5 Fixed RHSA-2024:8788
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 freeradius:3.0 Fixed RHSA-2024:4936
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 krb5 Fixed RHSA-2024:8860
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Advanced Update Support freeradius:3.0 Fixed RHSA-2024:4913
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Advanced Update Support krb5 Fixed RHSA-2024:8789
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support freeradius:3.0 Fixed RHSA-2024:4874
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support krb5 Fixed RHSA-2024:8791
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Telecommunications Update Service freeradius:3.0 Fixed RHSA-2024:4874
Unless explicitly stated as not affected, all previous versions of packages in any minor update stream of a product listed here should be assumed vulnerable, although may not have been subject to full analysis.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authorities (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications ).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown Red Hat NVD
CVSS v3 Base Score 9 9
Attack Vector Network Network
Attack Complexity High High
Privileges Required None None
User Interaction None None
Scope Changed Changed
Confidentiality Impact High High
Integrity Impact High High
Availability Impact High High

CVSS v3 Vector

Red Hat CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

 For open source software shipped by multiple vendors, the CVSS base scores may vary for each vendor's version depending on the version they ship, how they ship it, the platform, and even how the software is compiled. This makes scoring of vulnerabilities difficult for third-party vulnerability databases such as NVD that only provide a single CVSS base score for each vulnerability. Red Hat scores reflect how a vulnerability affects our products specifically.

For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?
  • "Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
  • "Affected" means that our Analysis Team has determined that this product is affected by this vulnerability and might release a fix to address this in the near future.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

 A "will not fix" status means that a fix for an affected product version is not planned or not possible due to complexity, which may create additional risk.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

 A deferred status means that a fix for an affected product version is not guaranteed due to higher-priority development work.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
  • Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

What is a mitigation?

 A mitigation is an action that can be taken to reduce the impact of a security vulnerability, without deploying any fixes.

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

 The listed products were found to include one or more of the components that this vulnerability affects. These products underwent a thorough evaluation to determine their affectedness by this vulnerability. Note that layered products (such as container-based offerings) that consume affected components from any of the products listed in this table may be affected and are not represented.

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

 In order to maintain code stability and compatibility, Red Hat usually does not rebase packages to entirely new versions. Instead, we backport fixes and new features to an older version of the package we distribute. This can result in some security scanners that only consider the package version to report the package as vulnerable. To avoid this, we suggest that you use an approved vulnerability scanner from our This content is not included.Red Hat Vulnerability Scanner Certification program.

My product is listed as "Out of Support Scope". What does this mean?

 When a product is listed as "Out of Support Scope", it means a vulnerability with the impact level assigned to this CVE is no longer covered by its current support lifecycle phase. The product has been identified to contain the impacted component, but analysis to determine whether it is affected or not by this vulnerability was not performed. The product should be assumed to be affected. Customers are advised to apply any mitigation options documented on this page, consider removing or disabling the impacted component, or upgrade to a supported version of the product that has an update available.