CVE-2022-29173

No protection against rollback attacks in go-tuf

HIGH
8.8
CVSS Score
Published: May 5, 2022 at 10:30 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 04:39 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorGo Tuf

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Severity
HIGH8.8
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.6%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

go-tuf is a Go implementation of The Update Framework (TUF). go-tuf does not correctly implement the client workflow for updating the metadata files for roles other than the root role. Specifically, checks for rollback attacks are not implemented correctly meaning an attacker can cause clients to install software that is older than the software which the client previously knew to be available, and may include software with known vulnerabilities. In more detail, the client code of go-tuf has several issues in regards to preventing rollback attacks: 1. It does not take into account the content of any previously trusted metadata, if available, before proceeding with updating roles other than the root role (i.e., steps 5.4.3.1 and 5.5.5 of the detailed client workflow). This means that any form of version verification done on the newly-downloaded metadata is made using the default value of zero, which always passes. 2. For both timestamp and snapshot roles, go-tuf saves these metadata files as trusted before verifying if the version of the metafiles they refer to is correct (i.e., steps 5.5.4 and 5.6.4 of the detailed client workflow). A fix is available in version 0.3.0 or newer. No workarounds are known for this issue apart from upgrading.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 0.3.00.2.0
Affected range stops below 0.3.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatableTotal impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-354

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