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Database

Kotlin Insecure Certificate Validation

Description

Detects implementations of TrustManager that may bypass proper SSL/TLS certificate validation in Kotlin code. This vulnerability can allow man-in-the-middle attacks by accepting invalid or untrusted certificates, compromising secure communication channels.

Weakness:

052 - Insecure encryption algorithm

Category: Information Collection

Detection Strategy

    • Identifies class initializations (init function) that implement TrustManager interface

    • Checks if the implementation contains potentially dangerous certificate validation logic

    • Reports a vulnerability if the TrustManager implementation appears to accept all certificates without proper validation checks

Vulnerable code example

import javax.net.ssl.SSLContext
import javax.net.ssl.X509TrustManager

val trustAllCerts = arrayOf(object : X509TrustManager {
    override fun checkClientTrusted(chain: Array<java.security.cert.X509Certificate>, 
        authType: String) {} // Insecure: Empty implementation accepts any certificate
        
    override fun checkServerTrusted(chain: Array<java.security.cert.X509Certificate>, ...

✅ Secure code example

import java.security.KeyStore
import javax.net.ssl.SSLContext
import javax.net.ssl.TrustManagerFactory

// Create trust manager using system's default trusted CAs
val tmf = TrustManagerFactory.getInstance(TrustManagerFactory.getDefaultAlgorithm()).apply {
    init(null as KeyStore?) // Use system default trust store for certificate validation
}...