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PHPECC vulnerable to multiple cryptographic side-channel attacks

Critical severity GitHub Reviewed Published Apr 25, 2024 to the GitHub Advisory Database

Package

composer mdanter/ecc (Composer)

Affected versions

>= 0, <= 1.0.0

Patched versions

None

Description

ECDSA Canonicalization

PHPECC is vulnerable to malleable ECDSA signature attacks.

Constant-Time Signer

When generating a new ECDSA signature, the GMPMath adapter was used. This class wraps the GNU Multiple Precision arithmetic library (GMP), which does not aim to provide constant-time implementations of algorithms.

An attacker capable of triggering many signatures and studying the time it takes to perform each operation would be able to leak the secret number, k, and thereby learn the private key.

EcDH Timing Leaks

When calculating a shared secret using the EcDH class, the scalar-point multiplication is based on the arithmetic defined by the Point class.

Even though the library implements a Montgomery ladder, the add(), mul(), and getDouble() methods on the Point class are not constant-time. This means that your ECDH private keys are leaking information about each bit of your private key through a timing side-channel.

References

Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Apr 25, 2024
Reviewed Apr 25, 2024

Severity

Critical

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

CVE ID

No known CVE

GHSA ID

GHSA-346h-749j-r28w

Source code

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