GHSA-5hq8-qhww-jm7q: Rust/libp2p-quic vulnerability
Summary
libp2p-quic can panic on an inbound QUIC handshake if a malicious peer presents a valid, short lived libp2p TLS certificate and delays the final TLS 1.3 handshake fragment until the certificate expires.
This is remotely reachable by a network peer and can crash applications exposing a libp2p QUIC listener.
Details During the TLS handshake, libp2p-tls parses and validates the peer certificate. After Quinn reports handshake completion, libp2p-quic re-parses the same certificate in the post-handshake upgrade path and assumes this cannot fail:
https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p/blob/969b707bf1177ebebd1febc285c3fd22793b95c5/transports/quic/src/connection/connecting.rs#L65-L66
However, libp2ptls::certificate::parse() re-runs certificate verification on every call, including a wall-clock validity check. A certificate that was valid during the first handshake time parse can expire before the second post-handshake parse, causing the expect(...) to panic.
PoC A malicious peer can trigger this by: 1. Opening a QUIC connection to a libp2p QUIC listener. 2. Presenting a valid libp2p TLS certificate with a very short lifetime. 3. Allowing the initial handshake-time certificate validation to succeed. 4. Withholding the final client handshake fragment packet until after the certificate expires, but before the QUIC handshake timeout elapses. 5. The listener completes the handshake and hits the post-handshake certificate re-parse, which panics.
Impact Remote unauthenticated denial of service. Any application exposing an affected libp2p-quic listener can be crashed by a network peer that performs a valid-looking QUIC/TLS handshake with attacker-controlled timing. No malformed packets are required.
Affected Software
Remediation
Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.
- Upgrade
Upgrade
rust/libp2p-quicto a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 0.13.1
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
Which deployments are exposed to this issue?
Applications that expose a libp2p QUIC listener are remotely reachable by a malicious network peer. The described impact is a process panic that can crash the application.
What does an attacker need to trigger the panic?
The attacker needs to connect to the QUIC listener and present a valid libp2p TLS certificate with a very short lifetime. They must delay the final TLS 1.3 handshake fragment so the certificate expires between the initial validation and the post-handshake certificate parse.
How can operators determine whether an attempted exploit has succeeded?
A successful attempt causes a panic during the inbound QUIC handshake, which can crash the application. Review application crash and panic logs around inbound QUIC connection handling.