Goal Reached Thanks to every supporter — we hit 100%!

Goal: 1000 CNY · Raised: 1000 CNY

100.0%

CWE-301 (认证协议中的反射攻击) — Vulnerability Class 1

1 vulnerabilities classified as CWE-301 (认证协议中的反射攻击). AI Chinese analysis included.

CWE-301 represents a critical authentication weakness where an attacker exploits a symmetric key protocol to impersonate a trusted user. This vulnerability typically arises in mutual authentication schemes that use identical pre-shared keys for multiple connections. An adversary intercepts a challenge from a target system and reflects it back to the same or another instance of the target, tricking the system into authenticating the attacker as a legitimate peer. By reusing the same cryptographic material across different communication channels, the protocol fails to distinguish between the initiator and responder roles effectively. Developers mitigate this risk by implementing distinct keys for each direction of communication or by incorporating unique identifiers, such as nonces or session IDs, into the authentication handshake. This ensures that a challenge generated for one party cannot be successfully reused by an attacker to authenticate themselves, thereby preserving the integrity of the mutual verification process.

MITRE CWE Description
Simple authentication protocols are subject to reflection attacks if a malicious user can use the target machine to impersonate a trusted user. A mutual authentication protocol requires each party to respond to a random challenge by the other party by encrypting it with a pre-shared key. Often, however, such protocols employ the same pre-shared key for communication with a number of different entities. A malicious user or an attacker can easily compromise this protocol without possessing the correct key by employing a reflection attack on the protocol. Reflection attacks capitalize on mutual authentication schemes in order to trick the target into revealing the secret shared between it and another valid user. In a basic mutual-authentication scheme, a secret is known to both the valid user and the server; this allows them to authenticate. In order that they may verify this shared secret without sending it plainly over the wire, they utilize a Diffie-Hellman-style scheme in which they each pick a value, then request the hash of that value as keyed by the shared secret. In a reflection attack, the attacker claims to be a valid user and requests the hash of a random value from the server. When the server returns this value and requests its own value to be hashed, the attacker opens another connection to the server. This time, the hash requested by the attacker is the value which the server requested in the first connection. When the server returns this hashed value, it is used …
Common Consequences (1)
Access ControlGain Privileges or Assume Identity
The primary result of reflection attacks is successful authentication with a target machine -- as an impersonated user.
Mitigations (2)
Architecture and DesignUse different keys for the initiator and responder or of a different type of challenge for the initiator and responder.
Architecture and DesignLet the initiator prove its identity before proceeding.
Examples (1)
The following example demonstrates the weakness.
unsigned char *simple_digest(char *alg,char *buf,unsigned int len, int *olen) { const EVP_MD *m; EVP_MD_CTX ctx; unsigned char *ret; OpenSSL_add_all_digests(); if (!(m = EVP_get_digestbyname(alg))) return NULL; if (!(ret = (unsigned char*)malloc(EVP_MAX_MD_SIZE))) return NULL; EVP_DigestInit(&ctx, m); EVP_DigestUpdate(&ctx,buf,len); EVP_DigestFinal(&ctx,ret,olen); return ret; } unsigned char *generate_password_and_cmd(char *password_and_cmd) { simple_digest("sha1",password,strlen(password_and_cmd) ... ); }
Bad · C
String command = new String("some cmd to execute & the password") MessageDigest encer = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA"); encer.update(command.getBytes("UTF-8")); byte[] digest = encer.digest();
Bad · Java

Vulnerabilities classified as CWE-301 (认证协议中的反射攻击) represent 1 CVEs. The CWE taxonomy describes the weakness; review individual CVEs for product-specific impact.