A timing side-channel vulnerability exists in the ECDSA signature computation that could potentially allow an attacker to recover the private key. This vulnerability requires either local access to the signing application or a very fast network connection with low latency to exploit. The NIST P-521 curve is particularly affected, and the overall severity of this vulnerability is considered low.
Details
| Severity | Base Score | CVE |
|---|---|---|
| MEDIUM | 4.1 | CVE-2024-13176 |
Exploitation
To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must either have local access to the application performing ECDSA signature computations or be able to measure the timing of the signature generation over a low-latency network. By analyzing the timing variations, particularly when the top word of the nonce is zero, the attacker could potentially recover the private key used in the signature process.
Affected Products
- OpenSSL FIPS modules 3.4, 3.3, 3.2, 3.1, and 3.0: These modules are affected due to the timing side-channel vulnerability in ECDSA signature computations.
Mitigation
To mitigate this vulnerability, it is recommended to ensure that the signing application is not accessible to unauthorized users and to implement network security measures that limit access to the signing process. Additionally, using updated versions of OpenSSL that address this vulnerability is crucial.