ConnectBot SSH Client Library is written in Kotlin with Kaitai Struct and KStateMachine. Prior to 0.3.1, the SSH protocol parser trusts attacker-controlled inner byte lengths and element counts without verifying that they fit in the containing packet. A malicious or compromised SSH server can return a small malformed packet whose oversized declarations cause the Kaitai Struct Java runtime to attempt excessive allocation or repeated parsing before detecting truncated input. The general transport path requires a client connection but no authentication or optional feature; malformed SSH-agent messages additionally require SSH agent forwarding. The issue can raise an uncaught OutOfMemoryError and terminate the application process, with no demonstrated confidentiality or integrity impact. This issue is fixed in version 0.3.1.

ConnectBot SSH Client Library is written in Kotlin with Kaitai Struct and KStateMachine. Prior to 0.3.1, DerReader.readLength() accepts excessive long-form DER length octets, accumulates them into an Int, and primitive readers allocate arrays without checking the declared size against the remaining input. An application or user that loads an attacker-provided private-key file through SshClient.authenticatePublicKey(), SshKeys.decodePemPrivateKey(), SshSigning.sign(), or SshSigning.getPublicKey() can trigger integer wraparound, excessive allocation, or an uncaught OutOfMemoryError. SSH server host keys and agent-forwarding messages do not use this application-supplied private-key input path. No usable weakened key and no confidentiality or integrity impact have been demonstrated. This issue is fixed in version 0.3.1.

Summary

Terrapin is a prefix truncation attack targeting the SSH protocol. More precisely, Terrapin breaks the integrity of SSH's secure channel. By carefully adjusting the sequence numbers during the handshake, an attacker can remove an arbitrary amount of messages sent by the client or server at the beginning of the secure channel without the client or server noticing it.

Mitigations

To mitigate this protocol vulnerability, OpenSSH suggested a so-called "strict kex" which alters the SSH handshake to ensure a Man-in-the-Middle attacker cannot introduce unauthenticated messages as well as convey sequence number manipulation across handshakes.

Warning: To take effect, both the client and server must support this countermeasure.

As a stop-gap measure, peers may also (temporarily) disable the affected algorithms and use unaffected alternatives like AES-GCM instead until patches are available.

Details

The SSH specifications of ChaCha20-Poly1305 (chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com) and Encrypt-then-MAC (-etm@openssh.com MACs) are vulnerable against an arbitrary prefix truncation attack (a.k.a. Terrapin attack). This allows for an extension negotiation downgrade by stripping the SSHMSGEXTINFO sent after the first message after SSHMSGNEWKEYS, downgrading security, and disabling attack countermeasures in some versions of OpenSSH. When targeting Encrypt-then-MAC, this attack requires the use of a CBC cipher to be practically exploitable due to the internal workings of the cipher mode. Additionally, this novel attack technique can be used to exploit previously unexploitable implementation flaws in a Man-in-the-Middle scenario.

The attack works by an attacker injecting an arbitrary number of SSHMSGIGNORE messages during the initial key exchange and consequently removing the same number of messages just after the initial key exchange has concluded. This is possible due to missing authentication of the excess SSHMSGIGNORE messages and the fact that the implicit sequence numbers used within the SSH protocol are only checked after the initial key exchange.

In the case of ChaCha20-Poly1305, the attack is guaranteed to work on every connection as this cipher does not maintain an internal state other than the message's sequence number. In the case of Encrypt-Then-MAC, practical exploitation requires the use of a CBC cipher; while theoretical integrity is broken for all ciphers when using this mode, message processing will fail at the application layer for CTR and stream ciphers.

For more details see https://terrapin-attack.com.

Impact

This attack targets the specification of ChaCha20-Poly1305 (chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com) and Encrypt-then-MAC (-etm@openssh.com), which are widely adopted by well-known SSH implementations and can be considered de-facto standard. These algorithms can be practically exploited; however, in the case of Encrypt-Then-MAC, we additionally require the use of a CBC cipher. As a consequence, this attack works against all well-behaving SSH implementations supporting either of those algorithms and can be used to downgrade (but not fully strip) connection security in case SSH extension negotiation (RFC8308) is supported. The attack may also enable attackers to exploit certain implementation flaws in a man-in-the-middle (MitM) scenario.