What happened
MikroTik RouterOS accepts malformed RSA/PKCS#1 v1.5 signatures across RSA-based services, including TLS/X.509 certificate validation and SSH host-key authentication. Because its trust store includes an e=3 root CA, an attacker controlling or redirecting an outbound RouterOS TLS connection can use the root’s public certificate - without its private key - to forge a trusted intermediate and issue certificates for arbitrary hostnames, enabling TLS server impersonation. The same permissive verification also undermines RSA-based SSH authentication. This issue affects only 7.x branch was fixed in versions: 7.23.6 (Long-term) and 7.24.3 (Stable). Releases 7.23.4 and 7.24.2 included an incomplete fix.
Affected versions
RouterOS: 7.24 through before 7.24.3 (custom); 7.0.0 through before 7.23.6 (custom) Fixed: See vendor advisory.
Why it matters
Review the vendor advisory and exposure of the affected product to determine operational impact.
Detection & mitigation
- Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations.
- Review affected product exposure and access logs.