CVE-2022-3996 - CVE House
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Status published Unknown CVE-2022-3996

X.509 Policy Constraints Double Locking

Vulnerability Description

If an X.509 certificate contains a malformed policy constraint and policy processing is enabled, then a write lock will be taken twice recursively. On some operating systems (most widely: Windows) this results in a denial of service when the affected process hangs. Policy processing being enabled on a publicly facing server is not considered to be a common setup. Policy processing is enabled by passing the `-policy' argument to the command line utilities or by calling the `X509_VERIFY_PARAM_set1_policies()' function. Update (31 March 2023): The description of the policy processing enablement was corrected based on CVE-2023-0466.

Impact Analysis

Refer to official advisory for detailed impact metrics.

Remediation

Ensure systems are updated to the latest vendor-supplied patch levels.

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Credits & Attribution

The following person or organization is credited with identifying this vulnerability, as recorded in the NVD database:

  • Polar Bear
  • Paul Dale

References

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Affected Vendor

Affected Software

OpenSSL
Vulnerable Versions:
3.0.0

Timeline

Official Publish: December 13th, 2022
Last Modified: August 3rd, 2024
Added to House: July 21st, 2026

CVSS Vectors

No vector data available

Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE-667

MITRE ATT&CK TTPs

No associated TTPs found for this vulnerability.