6.5 CVE-2025-9231

Enriched by CISA
 

Issue summary: A timing side-channel which could potentially allow remote recovery of the private key exists in the SM2 algorithm implementation on 64 bit ARM platforms. Impact summary: A timing side-channel in SM2 signature computations on 64 bit ARM platforms could allow recovering the private key by an attacker.. While remote key recovery over a network was not attempted by the reporter, timing measurements revealed a timing signal which may allow such an attack. OpenSSL does not directly support certificates with SM2 keys in TLS, and so this CVE is not relevant in most TLS contexts. However, given that it is possible to add support for such certificates via a custom provider, coupled with the fact that in such a custom provider context the private key may be recoverable via remote timing measurements, we consider this to be a Moderate severity issue. The FIPS modules in 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, 3.2, 3.1 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue, as SM2 is not an approved algorithm.
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-9231

Categories

CWE-385 : Covert Timing Channel
Covert timing channels convey information by modulating some aspect of system behavior over time, so that the program receiving the information can observe system behavior and infer protected information. Whenever possible, specify implementation strategies that do not introduce time variances in operations. Often one can artificially manipulate the time which operations take or -- when operations occur -- can remove information from the attacker. It is reasonable to add artificial or random delays so that the amount of CPU time consumed is independent of the action being taken by the application.

References


 

AFFECTED (from MITRE)

Vendor Product Versions
OpenSSL OpenSSL
  • 3.5.0 < 3.5.4 [affected]
  • 3.4.0 < 3.4.3 [affected]
  • 3.3.0 < 3.3.5 [affected]
  • 3.2.0 < 3.2.6 [affected]
© 2022 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation.

CPE

cpe start end

REMEDIATION


EXPLOITS

Exploit-db.com

id description date
No known exploits

POC Github

Url
No known exploits

Other Nist (github, ...)

Url
No known exploits

CAPEC

Common Attack Pattern Enumerations and Classifications

id description severity
462 Cross-Domain Search Timing
Medium