[dm-devel] [ANNOUNCE] cryptsetup 2.4.3 (CVE-2021-4122 fix)

[Milan Broz]

[It appears that dm-crypt mailing list no longer works, copy to dm-devel]

The cryptsetup 2.4.3 stable release is available at

        https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/cryptsetup

Please note that release packages are located on kernel.org

        https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/cryptsetup/v2.4/

Feedback and bug reports are welcomed.

Cryptsetup 2.4.3 Release Notes
==============================
Stable security bug-fix release that fixes CVE-2021-4122.

All users of cryptsetup 2.4.x must upgrade to this version.

Changes since version 2.4.2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Fix possible attacks against data confidentiality through LUKS2 online
    reencryption extension crash recovery (CVE-2021-4122).

    An attacker can modify on-disk metadata to simulate decryption in
    progress with crashed (unfinished) reencryption step and persistently
    decrypt part of the LUKS device.

    This attack requires repeated physical access to the LUKS device but
    no knowledge of user passphrases.

    The decryption step is performed after a valid user activates
    the device with a correct passphrase and modified metadata.
    There are no visible warnings for the user that such recovery happened
    (except using the luksDump command). The attack can also be reversed
    afterward (simulating crashed encryption from a plaintext) with
    possible modification of revealed plaintext.

    The size of possible decrypted data depends on configured LUKS2 header
    size (metadata size is configurable for LUKS2).
    With the default parameters (16 MiB LUKS2 header) and only one
    allocated keyslot (512 bit key for AES-XTS), simulated decryption with
    checksum resilience SHA1 (20 bytes checksum for 4096-byte blocks),
    the maximal decrypted size can be over 3GiB.

    The attack is not applicable to LUKS1 format, but the attacker can
    update metadata in place to LUKS2 format as an additional step.
    For such a converted LUKS2 header, the keyslot area is limited to
    decrypted size (with SHA1 checksums) over 300 MiB.

    The issue is present in all cryptsetup releases since 2.2.0.
    Versions 1.x, 2.0.x, and 2.1.x are not affected, as these do not
    contain LUKS2 reencryption extension.

    The problem was caused by reusing a mechanism designed for actual
    reencryption operation without reassessing the security impact for new
    encryption and decryption operations. While the reencryption requires
    calculating and verifying both key digests, no digest was needed to
    initiate decryption recovery if the destination is plaintext (no
    encryption key). Also, some metadata (like encryption cipher) is not
    protected, and an attacker could change it. Note that LUKS2 protects
    visible metadata only when a random change occurs. It does not protect
    against intentional modification but such modification must not cause
    a violation of data confidentiality.

    The fix introduces additional digest protection of reencryption
    metadata. The digest is calculated from known keys and critical
    reencryption metadata. Now an attacker cannot create correct metadata
    digest without knowledge of a passphrase for used keyslots.
    For more details, see LUKS2 On-Disk Format Specification version 1.1.0.

    The former reencryption operation (without the additional digest) is no
    longer supported (reencryption with the digest is not backward
    compatible). You need to finish in-progress reencryption before
    updating to new packages. The alternative approach is to perform
    a repair command from the updated package to recalculate reencryption
    digest and fix metadata.
    The reencryption repair operation always require a user passphrase.

    WARNING: Devices with older reencryption in progress can be no longer
    activated without performing the action mentioned above.

    Encryption in progress can be detected by running the luksDump command
    (output includes reencrypt keyslot with reencryption parameters). Also,
    during the active reencryption, no keyslot operations are available
    (change of passphrases, etc.).

    The issue was found by Milan Broz as cryptsetup maintainer.

Other changes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Add configure option --disable-luks2-reencryption to completely disable
    LUKS2 reencryption code.

    When used, the libcryptsetup library can read metadata with
    reencryption code, but all reencryption API calls and cryptsetup
    reencrypt commands are disabled.

    Devices with online reencryption in progress cannot be activated.
    This option can cause some incompatibilities. Please use with care.

* Improve internal metadata validation code for reencryption metadata.

* Add updated documentation for LUKS2 On-Disk Format Specification
    version 1.1.0 (with reencryption extension description and updated
    metadata description). See docs/on-disk-format-luks2.pdf or online
    version in https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/LUKS2-docs repository.

* Fix support for bitlk (BitLocker compatible) startup key with new
    metadata entry introduced in Windows 11.

* Fix space restriction for LUKS2 reencryption with data shift.
    The code required more space than was needed.

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