CVE-2025-22874: Certificate Verification Bypass Vulnerability

CVE-2025-22874 Overview

Calling Verify with a VerifyOptions.KeyUsages that contains ExtKeyUsageAny unintentionally disabled policy validation. This only affected certificate chains that contain policy graphs, which are relatively uncommon.

Critical Impact

This vulnerability can lead to a bypass in certificate policy validation, posing significant security risks for affected applications.

Affected Products

• Go Programming Language

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-06-11 - CVE CVE-2025-22874 published to NVD
• 2025-06-12 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-22874

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability arises from a misconfiguration in the VerifyOptions.KeyUsages. By including ExtKeyUsageAny, policy validation gets unintentionally disabled, potentially allowing unauthorized certificate chains to be accepted.

Root Cause

The inclusion of ExtKeyUsageAny in VerifyOptions.KeyUsages without proper handling leads to the bypass of policy validation.

Attack Vector

Network

// Example exploitation code (sanitized)
package main

import (
    "crypto/x509"
    "crypto/tls"
    "log"
)

func verifyConnection() {
    certPool := x509.NewCertPool()
    opts := x509.VerifyOptions{
        KeyUsages: []x509.ExtKeyUsage{x509.ExtKeyUsageAny},
    }
    chain, err := certPool.Verify(opts)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal("Policy validation bypassed")
    }
    // Further processing
}

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-22874

Indicators of Compromise

• Presence of ExtKeyUsageAny in VerifyOptions
• Unusual certificate acceptance logs
• Debugging messages related to policy validation

Detection Strategies

Monitor and review certificate verification processes for any instances where ExtKeyUsageAny is included in KeyUsages. Regularly audit logs for anomalies in certificate validation.

Monitoring Recommendations

Use advanced network monitoring tools to track and alert on unexpected certificate chains being trusted. SentinelOne provides robust detection features to identify such anomalies through behavior analysis.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-22874

Immediate Actions Required

• Update the Go programming environment to the latest secure version.
• Ensure VerifyOptions are correctly configured.
• Review and audit any certificate validation logic.

Patch Information

Consult the Go advisory for guidance on patched versions and security recommendations.

Workarounds

Review the VerifyOptions implementation to exclude ExtKeyUsageAny unless explicitly necessary. Consider custom policy validation logic.

# Configuration example
# Ensure that ExtKeyUsageAny is handled appropriately in the source code
find . -type f -name '*.go' -exec grep -Hn 'ExtKeyUsageAny' {} \;