Skip to content

Security: tlsfuzzer/tlslite-ng

Security

SECURITY.md

Security Policy

tlslite-ng received little-to-none 3rd party security review.

tlslite-ng CANNOT verify certificates – users of the library must use external means to check if certificate of the peer is the expected one.

Because python execution environment uses hash tables to store variables (that includes functions, objects and classes) it's very hard to create implementations that are timing attack resistant. Additionally, all integers use arbitrary precision arithmentic, so binary operations are data dependant (see Hubert Kario blog post on this topic). This means that CBC MAC-then-encrypt de-padding leaks timing information and all pure python cipher implementations will leak timing information. None of the included cipher implementations are written in a way that even tries to hide the data dependance.

In other words, pure-python (tlslite-ng internal) implementations of all ciphers, as well as all CBC mode ciphers working in MAC-then-encrypt mode are NOT secure. Don't use them. In addition to that, use AEAD ciphersuites (AES-GCM) or encrypt-then-MAC mode for CBC ciphers.

(Note: PyCrypto aes-gcm cipher is also not secure as it uses Python to calculate GCM tag, see issue #301)

Supported Versions

Only the current stable release is considered supported (will have fixes to security issues backported and new patches will trigger a new release).

Version Supported
0.8.0-alpha
0.7.x
< 0.7

Reporting a Vulnerability

Security issues can be reported by sending an email to [email protected]. Answer to the initial email can be expected in 2 work-days.

If an issue is recognised as a vulnerability, fixes for it will be developed on a good faith basis.

Unless otherwise agreed to, we'd like to request the reporter to keep the vulnerability confidential for the industry-accepted period for responsible disclosure of 90 days. The period will be cut short if the fix is released earlier.

Learn more about advisories related to tlsfuzzer/tlslite-ng in the GitHub Advisory Database