Threat database

Openfire is an XMPP server licensed under the Open Source Apache License. Openfire’s SASL EXTERNAL mechanism for client TLS authentication contains a vulnerability in how it extracts user identities from X.509 certificates. Instead of parsing the structured ASN.1 data, the code calls X509Certificate.getSubjectDN().getName() and applies a regex to look for CN=. This method produces a provider-dependent string that does not escape special characters. In SunJSSE (sun.security.x509.X500Name), for example, commas and equals signs inside attribute values are not escaped. As a result, a malicious certificate can embed CN= inside another attribute value (e.g. OU="CN=admin,"). The regex will incorrectly interpret this as a legitimate Common Name and extract admin. If SASL EXTERNAL is enabled and configured to map CNs to user accounts, this allows the attacker to impersonate another user. The fix is included in Openfire 5.0.2 and 5.1.0.

CVE-2023-32315 is a high-severity path traversal vulnerability in the Openfire XMPP server's administrative console setup environment. It allows unauthenticated attackers to access restricted administrative pages by exploiting improper pathname restrictions. This affects all Openfire versions released since April 2015 up to versions before 4.6.8 and 4.7.5, with patches available in those versions. The vulnerability enables attackers to gain partial administrative access without credentials, potentially compromising confidentiality and availability. No known exploits are currently in the wild, but the ease of exploitation and broad version impact make timely patching critical. European organizations using Openfire should prioritize upgrading to patched versions or apply mitigations from the GitHub advisory.