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Observable Discrepancy

CVE-2021-43398

Medium
5.3/10

Summary

** DISPUTED ** Crypto++ (aka Cryptopp) contains a timing leakage in MakePublicKey(). There is a clear correlation between execution time and private key length, which may cause disclosure of the length information of the private key. This might allow attackers to conduct timing attacks. NOTE: this report is disputed by the vendor and multiple third parties. The execution-time differences are intentional. A user may make a choice of a longer key as a tradeoff between strength and performance. In making this choice, the amount of information leaked to an adversary is of infinitesimal value.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • NONE
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • LOW
  • NONE

CWE-203 - Observable Discrepancy

The product behaves differently or sends different responses under different circumstances in a way that is observable to an unauthorized actor, which exposes security-relevant information about the state of the product, such as whether a particular operation was successful or not.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published