 Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping
The vulnerability means that there is an ASN.1 certificate format you can use that will validate against any unpatched GnuTLS-using application, regardless of how you configure ciphersuites and negotiation. The bug isn't cryptographic. It's much simpler and more basic than that. My guess is that it's also been embedded in GnuTLS for longer than the SecureTransport bug had been.<p>For connoisseurs of bogus conspiracy theories, it's worth noting that the coding flaw that produced the bug is much more subtle than "goto fail", but the bug is equally simplistic. Where "goto fail" required a duplicate line, GnuTLS required only a single switched token; not only that, but the bug comes from a mismatch between two common C error checking regimes (a zero-return error and a negative-return error).<p>I think what I like least about the bug is that it was found by the GnuTLS maintainer, long after the code shipped. That's a signal of how much attention GnuTLS gets.