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 measure the timing signal. The severity of this vulnerability is considered low, primarily affecting the NIST P-521 curve.
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 very fast network connection. By analyzing the timing variations, particularly when the top word of the inverted ECDSA nonce is zero, the attacker may be able to infer the private key.
Affected Products
- OpenSSL FIPS modules 3.4, 3.3, 3.2, 3.1, and 3.0: These modules are affected by the timing side-channel vulnerability in ECDSA signature computations.
Mitigation
To mitigate this vulnerability, it is recommended to update to the latest version of OpenSSL that addresses this timing side-channel issue. Additionally, employing network security measures to limit access to the signing application can help reduce the risk of exploitation.