CVE-2019-15809

Public Exploit

Description

Smart cards from the Athena SCS manufacturer, based on the Atmel Toolbox 00.03.11.05 and the AT90SC chip, contain a timing side channel in ECDSA signature generation. This allows a local attacker, able to measure the duration of hundreds to thousands of signing operations, to compute the private key used. The issue occurs because the Atmel Toolbox 00.03.11.05 contains two versions of ECDSA signature functions, described as fast and secure, but the affected cards chose to use the fast version, which leaks the bit length of the random nonce via timing. This affects Athena IDProtect 010b.0352.0005, Athena IDProtect 010e.1245.0002, Athena IDProtect 0106.0130.0401, Athena IDProtect 010e.1245.0002, Valid S/A IDflex V 010b.0352.0005, SafeNet eToken 4300 010e.1245.0002, TecSec Armored Card 010e.0264.0001, and TecSec Armored Card 108.0264.0001.

Category

4.7
CVSS
Severity: Medium
CVSS 3.1 •
CVSS 2.0 •
EPSS 0.10%
Third-Party Advisory openwall.com Third-Party Advisory nist.gov Third-Party Advisory iacr.org Third-Party Advisory muni.cz Third-Party Advisory iacr.org
Affected: n/a n/a
Published at:
Updated at:

References

Link Tags
https://eprint.iacr.org/2011/232.pdf third party advisory technical description
https://tches.iacr.org/index.php/TCHES/article/view/7337 third party advisory technical description
https://www.ssi.gouv.fr/certification_cc/bibliotheque-cryptographique-atmel-toolbox-00-03-11-05/ product
https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Cryptographic-Algorithm-Validation-Program/details?source=ECDSA&number=214 third party advisory us government resource
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/10/02/2 third party advisory mailing list
https://minerva.crocs.fi.muni.cz/ third party advisory exploit

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the severity of CVE-2019-15809?
CVE-2019-15809 has been scored as a medium severity vulnerability.
How to fix CVE-2019-15809?
To fix CVE-2019-15809, make sure you are using an up-to-date version of the affected component(s) by checking the vendor release notes. As for now, there are no other specific guidelines available.
Is CVE-2019-15809 being actively exploited in the wild?
It is possible that CVE-2019-15809 is being exploited or will be exploited in a near future based on public information. According to its EPSS score, there is a ~0% probability that this vulnerability will be exploited by malicious actors in the next 30 days.
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