CVE-2024-58262 – curve25519-dalek

Package

Manager: cargo
Name: curve25519-dalek
Vulnerable Version: >=0 <4.1.3

Severity

Level: Medium

CVSS v3.1: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N/E:U/RL:U/RC:C

CVSS v4.0: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

EPSS: 0.00015 pctl0.02089

Details

curve25519-dalek has timing variability in `curve25519-dalek`'s `Scalar29::sub`/`Scalar52::sub` Timing variability of any kind is problematic when working with potentially secret values such as elliptic curve scalars, and such issues can potentially leak private keys and other secrets. Such a problem was recently discovered in `curve25519-dalek`. The `Scalar29::sub` (32-bit) and `Scalar52::sub` (64-bit) functions contained usage of a mask value inside a loop where LLVM saw an opportunity to insert a branch instruction (`jns` on x86) to conditionally bypass this code section when the mask value is set to zero as can be seen in godbolt: - 32-bit (see L106): https://godbolt.org/z/zvaWxzvqv - 64-bit (see L48): https://godbolt.org/z/PczYj7Pda A similar problem was recently discovered in the Kyber reference implementation: https://groups.google.com/a/list.nist.gov/g/pqc-forum/c/hqbtIGFKIpU/m/cnE3pbueBgAJ As discussed on that thread, one portable solution, which is also used in this PR, is to introduce a volatile read as an optimization barrier, which prevents the compiler from optimizing it away. The fix can be validated in godbolt here: - 32-bit: https://godbolt.org/z/jc9j7eb8E - 64-bit: https://godbolt.org/z/x8d46Yfah The problem was discovered and the solution independently verified by Alexander Wagner <alexander.wagner@aisec.fraunhofer.de> and Lea Themint <lea.thiemt@tum.de> using their DATA tool: https://github.com/Fraunhofer-AISEC/DATA

Metadata

Created: 2024-06-18T21:56:24Z
Modified: 2025-07-28T15:46:43Z
Source: https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2024/06/GHSA-x4gp-pqpj-f43q/GHSA-x4gp-pqpj-f43q.json
CWE IDs: ["CWE-203"]
Alternative ID: GHSA-x4gp-pqpj-f43q
Finding: F026
Auto approve: 1