SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityModified

CVE-2018-16115

Lightbend Akka 2.5.x before 2.5.16 allows message disclosure and modification because of an RNG error.

CRITICAL 9.1EPSS 1.19%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (1.19%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

Lightbend Akka 2.5.x before 2.5.16 allows message disclosure and modification because of an RNG error. A random number generator is used in Akka Remoting for TLS (both classic and Artery Remoting). Akka allows configuration of custom random number generators. For historical reasons, Akka included the AES128CounterSecureRNG and AES256CounterSecureRNG random number generators. The implementations had a bug that caused the generated numbers to be repeated after only a few bytes. The custom RNG implementations were not configured by default but examples in the documentation showed (and therefore implicitly recommended) using the custom ones. This can be used by an attacker to compromise the communication if these random number generators are enabled in configuration. It would be possible to eavesdrop, replay, or modify the messages sent with Akka Remoting/Cluster.

CVSS 3.0
9.1 CRITICALCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
EPSS
1.19% probability · 66th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-338
Affected
lightbend/akka
Source
cve@mitre.org

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.