Openfire is an XMPP server licensed under the Open Source Apache License. Openfire’s SASL EXTERNAL mechanism for client TLS authentication contains a vulnerability in how it extracts user identities from X.509 certificates. Instead of parsing the structured ASN.1 data, the code calls X509Certificate.getSubjectDN().getName() and applies a regex to look for CN=. This method produces a provider-dependent string that does not escape special characters. In SunJSSE (sun.security.x509.X500Name), for example, commas and equals signs inside attribute values are not escaped. As a result, a malicious certificate can embed CN= inside another attribute value (e.g. OU="CN=admin,"). The regex will incorrectly interpret this as a legitimate Common Name and extract admin. If SASL EXTERNAL is enabled and configured to map CNs to user accounts, this allows the attacker to impersonate another user. The fix is included in Openfire 5.0.2 and 5.1.0.
Fixes

Solution

No solution given by the vendor.


Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 20:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Openfire is an XMPP server licensed under the Open Source Apache License. Openfire’s SASL EXTERNAL mechanism for client TLS authentication contains a vulnerability in how it extracts user identities from X.509 certificates. Instead of parsing the structured ASN.1 data, the code calls X509Certificate.getSubjectDN().getName() and applies a regex to look for CN=. This method produces a provider-dependent string that does not escape special characters. In SunJSSE (sun.security.x509.X500Name), for example, commas and equals signs inside attribute values are not escaped. As a result, a malicious certificate can embed CN= inside another attribute value (e.g. OU="CN=admin,"). The regex will incorrectly interpret this as a legitimate Common Name and extract admin. If SASL EXTERNAL is enabled and configured to map CNs to user accounts, this allows the attacker to impersonate another user. The fix is included in Openfire 5.0.2 and 5.1.0.
Title Openfire allows potential identity spoofing via unsafe CN parsing
Weaknesses CWE-290
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 5.9, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N'}

ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}


cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2025-09-15T20:11:46.822Z

Reserved: 2025-09-09T15:23:16.327Z

Link: CVE-2025-59154

cve-icon Vulnrichment

Updated: 2025-09-15T20:11:40.859Z

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2025-09-15T20:15:39.237

Modified: 2025-09-15T20:15:39.237

Link: CVE-2025-59154

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.