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Mbed TLS -- Side-channel attack on ECC key import and validation

Affected packages
mbedtls < 2.16.7

Details

VuXML ID c685edd9-c045-11ea-8898-001cc0382b2f
Discovery 2020-07-01
Entry 2020-07-07

Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard reports:

The scalar multiplication function in Mbed TLS accepts a random number generator (RNG) as an optional argument and, if provided, uses it to protect against some attacks.

It is the caller's responsibility to provide a RNG if protection against side-channel attacks is desired; however two groups of functions in Mbed TLS itself fail to pass a RNG:

  1. mbedtls_pk_parse_key() and mbedtls_pk_parse_keyfile()
  2. mbedtls_ecp_check_pub_priv() and mbedtls_pk_check_pair()

When those functions are called, scalar multiplication is computed without randomisation, a number of old and new attacks apply, allowing a powerful local attacker to fully recover the private key.

References

URL https://tls.mbed.org/tech-updates/security-advisories/mbedtls-security-advisory-2020-07