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.
No analysis available yet.
Remediation
No remediation available yet.
Tracking
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Advisories
| Source | ID | Title |
|---|---|---|
EUVD |
EUVD-2025-29235 | Openfire has potential identity spoofing issue via unsafe CN parsing |
Github GHSA |
GHSA-w252-645g-87mp | Openfire has potential identity spoofing issue via unsafe CN parsing |
References
History
Wed, 17 Sep 2025 11:00:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| First Time appeared |
Igniterealtime
Igniterealtime openfire |
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| Vendors & Products |
Igniterealtime
Igniterealtime openfire |
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 |
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| Metrics |
cvssV3_1
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: GitHub_M
Published:
Updated: 2025-09-15T20:11:46.822Z
Reserved: 2025-09-09T15:23:16.327Z
Link: CVE-2025-59154
Updated: 2025-09-15T20:11:40.859Z
Status : Deferred
Published: 2025-09-15T20:15:39.237
Modified: 2026-04-15T00:35:42.020
Link: CVE-2025-59154
No data.
OpenCVE Enrichment
Updated: 2025-09-17T10:06:33Z
Weaknesses
EUVD
Github GHSA