Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2018-16869


A Bleichenbacher type side-channel based padding oracle attack was found in the way nettle handles endian conversion of RSA decrypted PKCS#1 v1.5 data. An attacker who is able to run a process on the same physical core as the victim process, could use this flaw extract plaintext or in some cases downgrade any TLS connections to a vulnerable server.


Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.7, but requires specific conditions to be met without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), limited integrity, for affected systems. Impacting 1 product from nettle_project organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

First disclosed in 2018, this vulnerability was reported during a period defined by widespread IoT adoption challenges, mobile security concerns, and the emergence of advanced persistent threat (APT) techniques. Contemporary mitigation strategies focused on secure development practices and third-party component vetting.


Published

2018-12-03T14:29:00.380

Last Modified

2024-11-21T03:53:29.400

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 5.7 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N

  • Access Vector: LOCAL
  • Access Complexity: MEDIUM
  • Authentication: NONE
  • Confidentiality Impact: PARTIAL
  • Integrity Impact: PARTIAL
  • Availability Impact: NONE
Exploitability Score

3.4

Impact Score

4.9

Weaknesses
  • Type: Secondary
    CWE-203
  • Type: Primary
    CWE-203

Affected Vendors & Products
Type Vendor Product Version/Range Vulnerable?
Application nettle_project nettle ≤ 3.4 Yes

References

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For nettle_project's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.