open-quantum-safe liboqs up to 0.10.0 ML-KEM 512 Secret Key timing discrepancy

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in open-quantum-safe liboqs up to 0.10.0 and classified as problematic. This vulnerability affects unknown code of the component ML-KEM 512 Secret Key Handler. This manipulation causes timing discrepancy. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2024-36405. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in open-quantum-safe liboqs up to 0.10.0 and classified as problematic. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown part of the component ML-KEM 512 Secret Key Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a timing discrepancy vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-208. Two separate operations in a product require different amounts of time to complete, in a way that is observable to an actor and reveals security-relevant information about the state of the product, such as whether a particular operation was successful or not. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality. The summary by CVE is:

liboqs is a C-language cryptographic library that provides implementations of post-quantum cryptography algorithms. A control-flow timing lean has been identified in the reference implementation of the Kyber key encapsulation mechanism when it is compiled with Clang 15-18 for `-Os`, `-O1`, and other compilation options. A proof-of-concept local attack on the reference implementation leaks the entire ML-KEM 512 secret key in ~10 minutes using end-to-end decapsulation timing measurements. The issue has been fixed in version 0.10.1. As a possible workaround, some compiler options may produce vectorized code that does not leak secret information, however relying on these compiler options as a workaround may not be reliable.

It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2024-36405 since 05/27/2024. The exploitation appears to be difficult. The attack can be launched remotely. The exploitation doesn't need any form of authentication. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1592 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 213486 (SUSE SLED15 / SLES15 / openSUSE 15 Security Update : liboqs, oqs-provider (SUSE-SU-2025:0005-1)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 0.10.1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 982c762c242ef549c914891b47bf6e0ed6321f91 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at github.com. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at Tenable (213486). Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Vendor

• open-quantum-safe

Name

• liboqs

Version

• 0.1
• 0.2
• 0.3
• 0.4
• 0.5
• 0.6
• 0.7
• 0.8
• 0.9
• 0.10.0

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://github.com/open-quantum-safe/liboqs/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

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