On 15.06.2015 21:31, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
On 2015-06-15, Gerhard Wiesinger <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I saw that OpenSSH release 6.7 removed all CBC ciphers by default. Is
CBC therefore considered as broken and unsecure (in general or SSH
implementation)?
CBC modes in SSH use the last encrypted block of the previous packet
as the IV for the next packet. The protocol is specified this way.
As the new IV depends on the (unknown) key and an unbroken crypto/hash
algorithms I don't see any problem with this assuming normal behaviour
with new keys on a new connection and correct implementation. Am I wrong?
I also read a lot of references (see below) but still not clear to me
what's the actual "security status" of CBC and why it has been removed
in general.
These are pertinent:
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/958563
http://www.openssh.com/txt/cbc.adv
But that should be already covered by:
http://www.openssh.com/txt/release-5.2
We believe that these attacks are rendered infeasible by these changes.
BTW: If you didn't know, here you find the details about the attacks
(already in my link list):
http://isg.rhul.ac.uk/~kp/SandPfinal.pdf
I think it was unknown at the time OpenSSH 5.2 was released.
E.g. some assumptions are wrong: After at most 2^14 connections ...
With each new ssh connection I will have a new symmetrical key so the
assumption is not feasible.
Also: One of the main challenges for building an exploit based on our
proof-of-concept code would be to find a service which tolerates SSH
connection failures and reconnects on these failures.
I think such assumptions are just theoretical.
Also according to the paper encrypt then-MAC schemes are also vulnerable
(which are considered secure): But it is not hard to see that this
construction would still be vulnerable to our attacks.
There is another paper available: Some Fixes To SSH
https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/151.pdf
BTW: Jan Zerebecki also doesn't recommend the AES CTR modes as they
disclose packet length.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Guidelines/OpenSSH
Any comments on this?
Ciao,
Gerhard
-- http://www.wiesinger.com/
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