Question

Define the following vulnerabilities in simple words: Short answers only

1. Heartbleed vulnerability

2. Ticketbleed vulnerability

3. OpenSSL CCS vulnerability. (CVE-2014-0224)

4. OpenSSL Padding Oracle vulnerability (CVE-2016-2107)

5. Poodle
6. Logjam vulnerability

7. Freak vulnerability

Answer 1

1) Heartbleed vulnerability:
It is a security bug in the OpenSSL cryptography library- a widely used Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol implementation. The vulnerability lets the attackers steal information that is protected, under normal conditions, by the SSL/TLS encryption that is used for securing the Internet. It let attackers unusual access to sensitive information. It was a flaw in OpenSSL encryption software that is used to power a lot of secure communications on the web.

2) Ticketbleed vulnerability:
It is a software vulnerability (CVE-2016-9244) in the TLS/SSL stack of F5 BIG-IP appliances. It lets a remote attacker extract a maximum of 31 bytes of uninitialized memory at a given time. This particular memory has the potential to contain key material or sensitive data from other connections.

3) OpenSSL CCS vulnerability. (CVE-2014-0224):
The CCS Injection Vulnerability (CVE-2014-0224) is a serious vulnerability in the OpenSSL cryptographic software library. In this vulnerability, an attacker can force the use of weak keying material in OpenSSL SSL/TLS clients and servers using a carefully crafted handshake. Simply put, servers running an OpenSSL connection, it is a vulnerability exploiting that connection.

4) OpenSSL Padding Oracle vulnerability (CVE-2016-2107):
Using this flaw, a remote attacker could retrieve plain text from encrypted packets using a TLS/SSL or DTLS server as a padding oracle. This vulnerability affected versions of OpenSSL.

5) Poodle:
It is a MITM attack taking advantage of Internet and security software clients' fallback to SSL 3.0. When attackers exploit this vulnerability, they would on average, need to make 256 SSL 3.0 requests for revealing one byte of encrypted messages.

6) Logjam vulnerability:
It is a security vulnerability that is against a Diffie–Hellman key exchange, which ranges from 512-bit to 1024-bit keys. The vulnerability affected most common communication encryptions services such as Transport Layer Security (TLS), IPSec, and Secure Shell (SSH). The vulnerability lets Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attacker downgrading to a 512-bit export-grade cryptography secure connection, to be used for viewing and editing supposedly ‘securely encrypted’ data.

7) Freak vulnerability:
It is a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) / Transport Layer Security (TLS) vulnerability. It is a threat that lets an attacker get between a client and server as an intruder and view the communication transmitting between them that is intended to be private and secure. An OpenSSL client software bug is the cause of this vulnerability. The vulnerability is exploitable on poorly-configured web servers.