Vulnerability · Published Feb 2, 2021 · Assigned by snyk
CVE-2020-28498Cryptographic Issues
Medium 6.8
In plain English
A medium-severity security flaw in elliptic. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 1.2% (higher than 70% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Severity (CVSS 3.1)6.8Medium
Exploit odds (30 days)1.2%top 30.5% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsnot in CISA KEV
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known
Official description
The package elliptic before 6.5.4 are vulnerable to Cryptographic Issues via the secp256k1 implementation in elliptic/ec/key.js. There is no check to confirm that the public key point passed into the derive function actually exists on the secp256k1 curve. This results in the potential for the private key used in this implementation to be revealed after a number of ECDH operations are performed.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | node-elliptic | 6.5.4~dfsg-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2020-28498 |
| Debian:13 | node-elliptic | 6.5.4~dfsg-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2020-28498 |
| Debian:14 | node-elliptic | 6.5.4~dfsg-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2020-28498 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | node-elliptic | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2020-28498 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | node-elliptic | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2020-28498 |
| Ubuntu:25.10 | node-elliptic | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2020-28498 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | node-elliptic | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2020-28498 |
| Ubuntu:26.10 | node-elliptic | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2020-28498 |
| npm | elliptic | 6.5.4 | GHSA-r9p9-mrjm-926w |
Affected products (as reported)
References
- https://snyk.io/vuln/SNYK-JS-ELLIPTIC-1064899 x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://snyk.io/vuln/SNYK-JAVA-ORGWEBJARSNPM-1069836 x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/christianlundkvist/blog/blob/master/2020_05_26_secp256k1_twist_attacks/secp256k1_twist_attacks.md x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/indutny/elliptic/commit/441b7428b0e8f6636c42118ad2aaa186d3c34c3f x_refsource_CONFIRM