OP-TEE's subkey rollback protection can be bypassed with older subkey versions
- Published
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Fix
- Fixed in 4.11.0
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
- Exploitation: none
- Automatable: no
- Technical impact: partial
Summary
OP-TEE is a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) designed as companion to a non-secure Linux kernel running on Arm; Cortex-A cores using the TrustZone technology. Starting in version 3.20.0 and prior to version 4.11.0, a vulnerability in OP-TEE’s subkey rollback protection allows the use of revoked or older subkey versions because the system fails to propagate versioning data during the Trusted Application (TA) loading process. In `core/crypto/signed_hdr.c`, the function `shdr_load_pub_key()` parses subkey headers but does not assign the `subkey_version` to the runtime `shdr_pub_key` structure. As a result, the `key->version` field remains at zero regardless of the version specified in the header. When `ree_fs_ta_open()` in `core/kernel/ree_fs_ta.c` calls `check_update_version()`, it passes this zeroed version to the rollback database. Because the database never receives a non-zero version to record, it never advances, effectively bypassing the rollback check and allowing TAs signed with downgraded subkey chains to load successfully. This impacts OP-TEE mainline configurations that utilize subkey-based signing chains for Trusted Application (TA) authentication. Version 4.11.0 contains a patch. No known workarounds are available.
Timeline
- CVE published
- CISA SSVC assessment
Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
- Record last updated
Affected versions
- OP-TEE optee_os
From 3.20.0 · fixed in 4.11.0