Elliptic Cryptanalysis vulnerability when `k` has leading zeros (N/A Elliptic)
At a glance
- Source
- NVD
- EPSS
- EPSS 0.18 % · percentile 8 ()
- State
- PUBLISHED
- Published
- Updated
- Assigner
- HeroDevs
- NVD status
- Deferred
Description
The ECDSA implementation of the Elliptic package generates incorrect signatures if an interim value of 'k' (as computed based on step 3.2 of RFC 6979 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6979 ) has leading zeros and is susceptible to cryptanalysis, which can lead to secret key exposure. This happens, because the byte-length of 'k' is incorrectly computed, resulting in its getting truncated during the computation. Legitimate transactions or communications will be broken as a result. Furthermore, due to the nature of the fault, attackers could–under certain conditions–derive the secret key, if they could get their hands on both a faulty signature generated by a vulnerable version of Elliptic and a correct signature for the same inputs. This issue affects all known versions of Elliptic (at the time of writing, versions less than or equal to 6.6.1).
Weaknesses (CWE)
- CWE-1240 — Use of a Cryptographic Primitive with a Risky Implementation
References
Scores
| Version | Score | Vector | Scored by |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS 3.1 | MEDIUM 5.6 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L | HeroDevs |
| CVSS 3.1 | MEDIUM 5.6 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L | NVD · 36c7be3b-2937-45df-85ea-ca7133ea542c (Secondary) |
Advisories
- GHSA-848j-6mx2-7j84 — Elliptic Uses a Cryptographic Primitive with a Risky Implementation
European references
- ENISA EUVD · EUVD-2026-1445
- GCVE · GCVE-0-2025-14505
CERT-FR advisories
- CERTFR-2026-AVI-1094 — Multiples vulnérabilités dans les produits IBM · cert.ssi.gouv.fr
- CERTFR-2026-AVI-0901 — Multiples vulnérabilités dans les produits IBM · cert.ssi.gouv.fr
Affected products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
| N/A · Elliptic | affected <=6.6.1 |
Sources
| Source | Licence |
|---|---|
| CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5) | CVE Program Terms of Use |
| EPSS (FIRST.org) | FIRST — attribution requested |
| ENISA EUVD | ENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged |
| CERT-FR (ANSSI) | Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0 |
| NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feeds | Public domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD |