CVE-2022-3358 Using a Custom Cipher with NID_undef may lead to NULL encryption

What is CVE-2022-3358?

CVE-2022-3358 is a high-severity vulnerability in Openssl Openssl, published on 11 Oct 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

OpenSSL supports creating a custom cipher via the legacy EVP_CIPHER_meth_new() function and associated function calls. This function was deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0 and application authors are instead encouraged to use the new provider mechanism in order to implement custom ciphers. OpenSSL versions 3.0.0 to 3.0.5 incorrectly handle legacy custom ciphers passed to the EVP_EncryptInit_ex2(), EVP_DecryptInit_ex2() and EVP_CipherInit_ex2() functions (as well as other similarly named encryption and decryption initialisation functions). Instead of using the custom cipher directly it incorrectly tries to fetch an equivalent cipher from the available providers. An equivalent cipher is found based on the NID passed to EVP_CIPHER_meth_new(). This NID is supposed to represent the unique NID for a given cipher. However it is possible for an application to incorrectly pass NID_undef as this value in the call to EVP_CIPHER_meth_new(). When NID_undef is used in this way the OpenSSL encryption/decryption initialisation function will match the NULL cipher as being equivalent and will fetch this from the available providers. This will succeed if the default provider has been loaded (or if a third party provider has been loaded that offers this cipher). Using the NULL cipher means that the plaintext is emitted as the ciphertext. Applications are only affected by this issue if they call EVP_CIPHER_meth_new() using NID_undef and subsequently use it in a call to an encryption/decryption initialisation function. Applications that only use SSL/TLS are not impacted by this issue. Fixed in OpenSSL 3.0.6 (Affected 3.0.0-3.0.5).

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-3358?

3 open source packages ship an affected version, including openssl-src. It affects 1 product.

Products include Openssl Openssl.

How do I fix CVE-2022-3358?

Upgrade openssl-src to 300.0.10 or later.

Is CVE-2022-3358 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2022-3358 exists.

Public exploit code: 1 Metasploit module.

Other vulnerabilities in Openssl Openssl

• CVE-2009-3245 Null dereference in n/a Critical 10.0
• CVE-2006-3738 Memory corruption in n/a Critical 10.0
• CVE-2026-63073 Untrusted Sender DN Used as Format String in CMP Response Validation Critical 9.8
• CVE-2016-6309 Use after free in n/a Critical 9.8
• CVE-2016-0799 Integer overflow in n/a Critical 9.8

All Openssl Openssl vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2022-3358, ALSA-2023:2523, CLEANSTART-2026-HT25779, DEBIAN-CVE-2022-3358, GHSA-4f63-89w9-3jjv, RHSA-2023:2523 and 2 more.