CVE-2023-2975 AES-SIV implementation ignores empty associated data entries
OpenSSL's AES-SIV implementation fails to authenticate empty associated data entries, allowing attackers to modify or remove them without detection.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2023-2975?
CVE-2023-2975 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Netapp Ontap Select Deploy Administration Utility, published on 14 Jul 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Issue summary: The AES-SIV cipher implementation contains a bug that causes it to ignore empty associated data entries which are unauthenticated as a consequence.
Impact summary: Applications that use the AES-SIV algorithm and want to authenticate empty data entries as associated data can be misled by removing, adding or reordering such empty entries as these are ignored by the OpenSSL implementation. We are currently unaware of any such applications.
The AES-SIV algorithm allows for authentication of multiple associated data entries along with the encryption. To authenticate empty data the application has to call EVP_EncryptUpdate() (or EVP_CipherUpdate()) with NULL pointer as the output buffer and 0 as the input buffer length. The AES-SIV implementation in OpenSSL just returns success for such a call instead of performing the associated data authentication operation. The empty data thus will not be authenticated.
As this issue does not affect non-empty associated data authentication and we expect it to be rare for an application to use empty associated data entries this is qualified as Low severity issue.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-2975?
It affects 3 products.
Products include Netapp Management Services for Element Software and Netapp Hci, Netapp Ontap Select Deploy Administration Utility, Openssl Openssl.
How do I fix CVE-2023-2975?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2023-2975 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-2975 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2023-2975, AZL-47652, CLEANSTART-2026-DD78875, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-2975, GHSA-hpqg-7fjp-436p, JLSEC-2026-240 and 1 more.