Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2019-15809


Smart cards from the Athena SCS manufacturer, based on the Atmel Toolbox 00.03.11.05 and the AT90SC chip, contain a timing side channel in ECDSA signature generation. This allows a local attacker, able to measure the duration of hundreds to thousands of signing operations, to compute the private key used. The issue occurs because the Atmel Toolbox 00.03.11.05 contains two versions of ECDSA signature functions, described as fast and secure, but the affected cards chose to use the fast version, which leaks the bit length of the random nonce via timing. This affects Athena IDProtect 010b.0352.0005, Athena IDProtect 010e.1245.0002, Athena IDProtect 0106.0130.0401, Athena IDProtect 010e.1245.0002, Valid S/A IDflex V 010b.0352.0005, SafeNet eToken 4300 010e.1245.0002, TecSec Armored Card 010e.0264.0001, and TecSec Armored Card 108.0264.0001.


Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 4.7, requiring local system access to exploit but requires specific conditions to be met without requiring user interaction requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), for affected systems. Impacting 5 products from microchip, from athena-scs, from cryptsoft and 2 others, organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

First disclosed in 2019, 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

2019-10-03T14:15:11.320

Last Modified

2024-11-21T04:29:30.693

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 4.7 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

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

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

1.9

Impact Score

2.9

Weaknesses
  • Type: Primary
    CWE-203

Affected Vendors & Products
Type Vendor Product Version/Range Vulnerable?
Application microchip atmel_toolbox 00.03.11.05 Yes
Operating System athena-scs idprotect 010b.0352.0005 Yes
Operating System athena-scs idprotect 010e.1245.0002 Yes
Operating System athena-scs idprotect 0106.0130.0401 Yes
Operating System cryptsoft s\/a_idflex_v 010b.0352.0005 Yes
Operating System tecsec armored_card 010e.0264.0001 Yes
Operating System tecsec armored_card 108.0264.0001 Yes
Operating System thalesgroup etoken_4300 010e.1245.0002 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 microchip'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.