CVE-2022-39255
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 · uneditedMatrix iOS SDK allows developers to build iOS apps compatible with Matrix. Prior to version 0.23.19, an attacker cooperating with a malicious homeserver can construct messages that legitimately appear to have come from another person, without any indication such as a grey shield. Additionally, a sophisticated attacker cooperating with a malicious homeserver could employ this vulnerability to perform a targeted attack in order to send fake to-device messages appearing to originate from another user. This can allow, for example, to inject the key backup secret during a self-verification, to make a targeted device start using a malicious key backup spoofed by the homeserver. These attacks are possible due to a protocol confusion vulnerability that accepts to-device messages encrypted with Megolm instead of Olm. matrix-ios-sdk version 0.23.19 has been modified to only accept Olm-encrypted to-device messages. Out of caution, several other checks have been audited or added. This attack requires coordination between a malicious home server and an attacker, so those who trust their home servers do not need a workaround. To avoid malicious backup attacks, one should not verify one's new logins using emoji/QR verifications methods until patched.
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 analysisThe mechanism that verifies who a user is can be side-stepped or fooled, letting an attacker act as someone they're not. Everything built on top of that identity then becomes untrustworthy. Fixing it means hardening the full authentication flow, including edge cases, tokens, and secondary paths.
General guidance for the improper authentication class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
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< 0.23.19CVSS 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
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
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 · scoped0.23.19
0.23.19 or later
- Update the matrix-ios-sdk dependency in your iOS project to version 0.23.19 or later
- Rebuild your iOS application with the updated SDK
- Redeploy the application to end users
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2022-39255 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-39255 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data