{"id":"GHSA-wvc4-j7g5-4f79","summary":"NATS TLS certificate common name validation bypass","details":"The NATS official Rust clients are vulnerable to MitM when using TLS.\n\nA fix for the `nats` crate hasn't been released yet. Since the `nats` crate is going to be deprecated anyway, consider switching to `async-nats` `\u003e= 0.29` which already fixed this vulnerability.\n\nThe common name of the server's TLS certificate is validated against the `host`name provided by the server's plaintext `INFO` message during the initial connection setup phase. A MitM proxy can tamper with the `host` field's value by substituting it with the common name of a valid certificate it controls, fooling the client into accepting it.\n\n## Reproduction steps\n\n1. The NATS Rust client tries to establish a new connection\n2. The connection is intercepted by a MitM proxy\n3. The proxy makes a separate connection to the NATS server\n4. The NATS server replies with an `INFO` message\n5. The proxy reads the `INFO`, alters the `host` JSON field and passes the tampered `INFO` back to the client\n6. The proxy upgrades the client connection to TLS, presenting a certificate issued by a certificate authority present in the client's keychain. In the previous step the `host` was set to the common name of said certificate\n7. `rustls` accepts the certificate, having verified that the common name matches the attacker-controlled value it was given\n9. The client has been fooled by the MitM proxy into accepting the attacker-controlled certificate\n","aliases":["RUSTSEC-2023-0029"],"modified":"2023-11-08T04:24:00.164703Z","published":"2023-03-27T21:12:24Z","database_specific":{"severity":"MODERATE","github_reviewed":true,"github_reviewed_at":"2023-03-27T21:12:24Z","nvd_published_at":null,"cwe_ids":["CWE-347"]},"references":[{"type":"WEB","url":"https://github.com/nats-io/nats.rs/pull/881"},{"type":"WEB","url":"https://github.com/nats-io/nats.rs/pull/887"},{"type":"WEB","url":"https://github.com/nats-io/nats.rs/commit/9bacb86a480803ece9d1a45aa443081cf1eb815c"},{"type":"PACKAGE","url":"https://github.com/nats-io/nats.rs"},{"type":"WEB","url":"https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2023-0029.html"}],"affected":[{"package":{"name":"nats","ecosystem":"crates.io","purl":"pkg:cargo/nats"},"ranges":[{"type":"SEMVER","events":[{"introduced":"0.9.0"},{"fixed":"0.24.1"}]}],"database_specific":{"last_known_affected_version_range":"\u003c= 0.24.0","source":"https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2023/03/GHSA-wvc4-j7g5-4f79/GHSA-wvc4-j7g5-4f79.json"}}],"schema_version":"1.9.0"}