GLSA 201706-21: nettle: Information disclosure

http://security.gentoo.org/

Severity:	normal
Title:	nettle: Information disclosure
Date:	06/22/2017
Bugs:	#590484
ID:	201706-21

Synopsis

A cache-related side channel vulnerability was found in nettle which might allow an attacker to obtain sensitive information.

Background

Nettle is a cryptographic library that is designed to fit easily in almost any context: In cryptographic toolkits for object-oriented languages, such as C++, Python, or Pike, in applications like lsh or GnuPG, or even in kernel space.

Affected packages

Package	Vulnerable	Unaffected	Architecture(s)
dev-libs/nettle	< 3.2-r1	>= 3.2-r1	All supported architectures

Description

It was found that nettle’s RSA and DSA decryption code was vulnerable to cache-related side channel attacks.

See the referenced technical paper “Cache Attacks Enable Bulk Key Recovery on the Cloud” below for details.

Impact

An attacker could recover the private key from a co-located virtual-machine instance.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All nettle users should upgrade to the latest version:

      # emerge --sync
      # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=dev-libs/nettle-3.2-r1"

References

Availability

This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at the Gentoo Security Website: http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-201706-21.xml

Concerns?

Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost importance to us. Any security concerns should be addressed to security@gentoo.org or alternatively, you may file a bug at https://bugs.gentoo.org.