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OpensshApplication · OpenBSD

CVE-2008-3844

HIGH · 9.3 CVSS v2.0 Published 2008-08-27
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Certain Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4 and 5 packages for OpenSSH, as signed in August 2008 using a legitimate Red Hat GPG key, contain an externally introduced modification (Trojan Horse) that allows the package authors to have an unknown impact. NOTE: since the malicious packages were not distributed from any official Red Hat sources, the scope of this issue is restricted to users who may have obtained these packages through unofficial distribution points. As of 20080827, no unofficial distributions of this software are known.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

Trojaned OpenSSH packages for RHEL 4 and 5 were signed in August 2008 using legitimate Red Hat GPG keys, representing a supply chain compromise where attackers obtained or forged signing credentials to introduce unknown malicious modifications (likely a backdoor) into the SSH daemon packages.

MitigationUsers should verify their OpenSSH packages against official Red Hat repositories, confirm package signatures are valid and match official sources, and re-install OpenSSH from trusted official channels if any discrepancy is found.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
OpensshApplication
Affected:all versions

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
M
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Complete
Integrity
Complete
Availability
Complete

AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify installed OpenSSH package version
    Run 'rpm -qa | grep openssh' on Red Hat-based systems to list installed OpenSSH packages and their versions
    Affected if The installed version matches the compromised packages from August 2008 (versions released in that timeframe) or shows a version not available in official Red Hat channels
  2. Verify package GPG signatures
    Run 'rpm --checksig /path/to/openssh*.rpm' or for installed packages 'rpm -qa --qf '%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}.%{ARCH}\n' | xargs rpm --checksig' to verify signatures are valid and match Red Hat's official GPG keys
    Affected if Signatures fail verification, show unknown keys, or signatures cannot be validated against trusted Red Hat GPG keyrings
  3. Compare against official Red Hat repositories
    Run 'yum check-update' or 'yum list openssh*' to compare installed packages against official repository versions, or manually download packages from access.redhat.com and compare checksums
    Affected if Installed packages differ from repository versions or show versions/checksums not present in official RHN channels
  4. Inspect package file integrity
    Run 'rpm -V openssh' to check for any modified files in the installed package, or use 'rpm -ql openssh' to list all package files and verify against known-good baseline
    Affected if Any files show as modified (verification fails) or unexpected files exist in the OpenSSH package directory

The system is affected if OpenSSH packages were installed during August 2008 from non-official sources or if package signatures, versions, or file integrity checks do not match official Red Hat repository data.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Users should verify their OpenSSH packages against official Red Hat repositories, confirm package signatures are valid and match official sources, and re-install OpenSSH from trusted official channels if any discrepancy is found.

Recommended fix High confidence
  1. 1. Verify that all OpenSSH installations are obtained from official vendor repositories (e.g., official Red Hat/CentOS/Fedora repositories for RHEL-based systems)
  2. 2. For any systems that may have installed OpenSSH from unofficial or third-party sources between July-August 2008, perform a fresh OS installation from official media
  3. 3. Verify package signatures (rpm -K) on any SSH-related packages to ensure they are signed by the expected legitimate vendor GPG keys
  4. 4. If compromise is suspected, treat the system as potentially fully compromised and rebuild from trusted sources
  5. 5. Implement a policy of only installing software from official vendor repositories
Caveat This CVE describes a historical supply-chain compromise from 2008 via malicious unofficial packages. No current CVE-specific upgrade applies; ensure current OpenSSH installations come from official vendor sources

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Openssh Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
20.0 hours of engineering $3,500
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2008-3844 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data