CVE-2023-4807

POLY1305 MAC implementation corrupts XMM registers on Windows

HIGH
7.8
CVSS Score
Published: September 8, 2023 at 11:01 AM UTC
Updated: October 14, 2026 at 10:17 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorOpenSSL

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Severity
HIGH7.8
Exploit prediction
EPSS 2%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Issue summary: The POLY1305 MAC (message authentication code) implementation contains a bug that might corrupt the internal state of applications on the Windows 64 platform when running on newer X86_64 processors supporting the AVX512-IFMA instructions. Impact summary: If in an application that uses the OpenSSL library an attacker can influence whether the POLY1305 MAC algorithm is used, the application state might be corrupted with various application dependent consequences. The POLY1305 MAC (message authentication code) implementation in OpenSSL does not save the contents of non-volatile XMM registers on Windows 64 platform when calculating the MAC of data larger than 64 bytes. Before returning to the caller all the XMM registers are set to zero rather than restoring their previous content. The vulnerable code is used only on newer x86_64 processors supporting the AVX512-IFMA instructions. The consequences of this kind of internal application state corruption can be various - from no consequences, if the calling application does not depend on the contents of non-volatile XMM registers at all, to the worst consequences, where the attacker could get complete control of the application process. However given the contents of the registers are just zeroized so the attacker cannot put arbitrary values inside, the most likely consequence, if any, would be an incorrect result of some application dependent calculations or a crash leading to a denial of service. The POLY1305 MAC algorithm is most frequently used as part of the CHACHA20-POLY1305 AEAD (authenticated encryption with associated data) algorithm. The most common usage of this AEAD cipher is with TLS protocol versions 1.2 and 1.3 and a malicious client can influence whether this AEAD cipher is used by the server. This implies that server applications using OpenSSL can be potentially impacted. However we are currently not aware of any concrete application that would be affected by this issue therefore we consider this a Low severity security issue. As a workaround the AVX512-IFMA instructions support can be disabled at runtime by setting the environment variable OPENSSL_ia32cap: OPENSSL_ia32cap=:~0x200000 The FIPS provider is not affected by this issue.

Affected

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

1.1.1 ≤ v < 1.1.1w3.0.0 ≤ v < 3.0.113.1.0 ≤ v < 3.1.31.1.13.0.03.1.0
Affected range stops below 1.1.1w, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 3.0.11, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 3.1.3, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatableTotal impact

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

CVSS

7.8HIGHCISA-ADP
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-440NVD-CWE-noinfo

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