OpenSSL up to 4.0.2 Elliptic-Curve Scalar Multiplication timing discrepancy

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability labeled as problematic has been found in OpenSSL up to 3.0.22/3.4.7/3.5.8/3.6.4/4.0.2. The affected element is an unknown function of the component Elliptic-Curve Scalar Multiplication. Such manipulation leads to timing discrepancy. This vulnerability is listed as CVE-2026-54872. The attack may be performed from remote. There is no available exploit. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, has been found in OpenSSL up to 3.0.22/3.4.7/3.5.8/3.6.4/4.0.2. Affected by this issue is an unknown part of the component Elliptic-Curve Scalar Multiplication. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a timing discrepancy vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to 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. Impacted is confidentiality. CVE summarizes:

Issue summary: The generic elliptic-curve scalar multiplication used for ECDSA and SM2 signature operations with curves that do not have a dedicated implementation leaks information about the secret nonce through timing. Impact summary: An attacker able to measure signing times may learn information about the per-signature secret nonce, which over many signatures can, via a lattice / Hidden Number Problem attack, lead to recovery of the private key. CWE: CWE-208: Observable Timing Discrepancy Description: The generic elliptic-curve scalar multiplication used for curves that do not have a dedicated constant-time implementation pads the secret scalar with non-constant-time BIGNUM operations, so the time taken depends on the value of the secret scalar derived from the ECDSA and SM2 nonce. The leak is very small; observing it requires a large number of measurements. The effect is largest for curves whose group order lies on a machine-word boundary, such as brainpoolP384r1. Applications using ECDSA signing over the Brainpool and other generic prime curves, and SM2 signing on platforms that use the generic implementation, are vulnerable to this issue. The NIST curves P-256, P-384 and P-521 use dedicated constant-time implementations and are not affected. FIPS Impact: no The FIPS modules are not affected: the approved NIST curves used in the FIPS provider have dedicated constant-time implementations and do not use the affected code path.

The advisory is shared for download at openssl-library.org. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2026-54872 since 06/16/2026. The exploitation is known to be difficult. The attack may be launched remotely. There are neither technical details nor an exploit publicly available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $0-$5k (estimation calculated on 09/29/2026). The MITRE ATT&CK project declares the attack technique as T1592.

Upgrading to version 1.0.2zs, 1.1.1zj, 3.0.23, 3.4.8, 3.5.9, 3.6.5 or 4.0.3 eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Type

• Network Encryption Software

Name

• OpenSSL

Version

• 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
• 3.0.16
• 3.0.17
• 3.0.18
• 3.0.19
• 3.0.20
• 3.0.21
• 3.0.22
• 3.4.0
• 3.4.1
• 3.4.2
• 3.4.3
• 3.4.4
• 3.4.5
• 3.4.6
• 3.4.7
• 3.5.0
• 3.5.1
• 3.5.2
• 3.5.3
• 3.5.4
• 3.5.5
• 3.5.6
• 3.5.7
• 3.5.8
• 3.6.0
• 3.6.1
• 3.6.2
• 3.6.3
• 3.6.4
• 4.0.0
• 4.0.1
• 4.0.2

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://www.openssl.org/

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