OpenSSL up to 3.4.0 ECDSA Signature covert timing channel

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as problematic has been reported in OpenSSL up to 3.4.0. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality of the component ECDSA Signature Handler. Performing a manipulation results in covert timing channel. This vulnerability is identified as CVE-2024-13176. The attack is only possible with local access. There is not any exploit available. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, was found in OpenSSL up to 3.4.0. This affects an unknown code of the component ECDSA Signature Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a covert timing channel vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-385. Covert timing channels convey information by modulating some aspect of system behavior over time, so that the program receiving the information can observe system behavior and infer protected information. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality. The summary by CVE is:

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.

The weakness was released by George Pantelakis (Website). It is possible to read the advisory at openssl-library.org. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2024-13176 since 01/07/2025. The exploitability is told to be difficult. Attacking locally is a requirement. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 214984 (Amazon Linux 2 : edk2 (ALAS-2025-2750)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 1.0.2zl, 1.1.1zb, 3.0.16, 3.1.8, 3.2.4, 3.3.3 or 3.4.1 eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (214984) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-0131). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

• IBM VIOS
• IBM AIX
• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• Xerox FreeFlow Print Server
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• Dell PowerEdge
• SUSE openSUSE
• NetApp ActiveIQ Unified Manager
• Dell NetWorker
• Insyde UEFI Firmware
• Dell Computer
• Open Source OpenSSL
• Hitachi Ops Center
• Dell Avamar
• FreeBSD Project FreeBSD OS
• HCL BigFix
• IBM DataPower Gateway
• Tenable Security Nessus Network Monitor
• IBM Power Hardware Management Console
• Splunk Splunk Enterprise
• SolarWinds Platform
• Dell PowerProtect Data Domain
• Dell PowerScale OneFS
• Meinberg LANTIME
• HPE HP-UX
• HP Computer

Productinfo

Type

• Network Encryption Software

Name

• OpenSSL

Version

• 1.0.2za
• 1.0.2zb
• 1.0.2zc
• 1.0.2zd
• 1.0.2ze
• 1.0.2zf
• 1.0.2zg
• 1.0.2zh
• 1.0.2zi
• 1.0.2zj
• 1.0.2zk
• 1.1.1za
• 3.0
• 3.0.0
• 3.0.1
• 3.0.2
• 3.0.3
• 3.0.4
• 3.0.5
• 3.0.6
• 3.0.7
• 3.0.8
• 3.0.9
• 3.0.10
• 3.0.11
• 3.0.12
• 3.0.13
• 3.0.14
• 3.0.15
• 3.1
• 3.1.0
• 3.1.1
• 3.1.2
• 3.1.3
• 3.1.4
• 3.1.5
• 3.1.6
• 3.1.7
• 3.2
• 3.2.0
• 3.2.1
• 3.2.2
• 3.2.3
• 3.3
• 3.3.0
• 3.3.1
• 3.3.2
• 3.4.0

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://www.openssl.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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CVSSv4info

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Exploitinginfo

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Entryinfo

Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

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