CVE-2021-4160

BN_mod_exp may produce incorrect results on MIPS

At a glance

Severity
Not available
EPSS
EPSS 3.77 % · percentile 90 (2026-10-27)
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
openssl
NVD status
Modified

Description

There is a carry propagation bug in the MIPS32 and MIPS64 squaring procedure. Many EC algorithms are affected, including some of the TLS 1.3 default curves. Impact was not analyzed in detail, because the pre-requisites for attack are considered unlikely and include reusing private keys. Analysis suggests that attacks against RSA and DSA as a result of this defect would be very difficult to perform and are not believed likely. Attacks against DH are considered just feasible (although very difficult) because most of the work necessary to deduce information about a private key may be performed offline. The amount of resources required for such an attack would be significant. However, for an attack on TLS to be meaningful, the server would have to share the DH private key among multiple clients, which is no longer an option since CVE-2016-0701. This issue affects OpenSSL versions 1.0.2, 1.1.1 and 3.0.0. It was addressed in the releases of 1.1.1m and 3.0.1 on the 15th of December 2021. For the 1.0.2 release it is addressed in git commit 6fc1aaaf3 that is available to premium support customers only. It will be made available in 1.0.2zc when it is released. The issue only affects OpenSSL on MIPS platforms. Fixed in OpenSSL 3.0.1 (Affected 3.0.0). Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1m (Affected 1.1.1-1.1.1l). Fixed in OpenSSL 1.0.2zc-dev (Affected 1.0.2-1.0.2zb).

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.9CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:NNVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)
CVSS 2.0MEDIUM 4.3AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:NNVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)

European references

CERT-FR advisories

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

Affected products

ProductVersions
OpenSSL · OpenSSLaffected Fixed in OpenSSL 3.0.1 (Affected 3.0.0) ; affected Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1m (Affected 1.1.1-1.1.1l) ; affected Fixed in OpenSSL 1.0.2zc-dev (Affected 1.0.2-1.0.2zb)

References

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
CERT-FR (ANSSI)Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD