Security: Use constant-time comparison for HMAC verification #23
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Fix potential timing attack vulnerability in HMAC signature verification.
The previous implementation used Ruby's == operator for comparing signatures:
This is vulnerable to timing attacks because == performs byte-by-byte comparison and returns false as soon as it finds a mismatch. An attacker can measure response times to determine how many leading bytes of their forged signature match the valid signature, potentially allowing them to construct a valid signature over many requests.
The fix uses OpenSSL.secure_compare which performs constant-time comparison:
This always takes the same amount of time regardless of where (or if) the strings differ, preventing timing-based information leakage.
Changes:
Security Impact:
References: