Covert Timing Channel Affecting openssl-devel package, versions <1:1.0.2k-24.amzn2.0.15


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on Amazon Linux security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.04% (16th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-AMZN2-OPENSSLDEVEL-9299429
  • published7 Mar 2025
  • disclosed20 Jan 2025

Introduced: 20 Jan 2025

CVE-2024-13176  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-385  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Amazon-Linux:2 openssl-devel to version 1:1.0.2k-24.amzn2.0.15 or higher.
This issue was patched in ALAS2-2025-2780.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream openssl-devel package and not the openssl-devel package as distributed by Amazon-Linux. See How to fix? for Amazon-Linux:2 relevant fixed versions and status.

Issue summary: A timing side-channel which could potentially allow recovering the private key exists in the ECDSA signature computation.

Impact summary: A timing side-channel in ECDSA signature computations could allow recovering the private key by an attacker. However, measuring the timing would require either local access to the signing application or a very fast network connection with low latency.

There is a timing signal of around 300 nanoseconds when the top word of the inverted ECDSA nonce value is zero. This can happen with significant probability only for some of the supported elliptic curves. In particular the NIST P-521 curve is affected. To be able to measure this leak, the attacker process must either be located in the same physical computer or must have a very fast network connection with low latency. For that reason the severity of this vulnerability is Low.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1