CVE-2017-9230

Summary

CVECVE-2017-9230
StatePUBLISHED
Assignermitre
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2017-05-24 16:29:00 UTC
Updated2025-04-20 01:37:25 UTC
DescriptionThe Bitcoin Proof-of-Work algorithm does not consider a certain attack methodology related to 80-byte block headers with a variety of initial 64-byte chunks followed by the same 16-byte chunk, multiple candidate root values ending with the same 4 bytes, and calculations involving sqrt numbers. This violates the security assumptions of (1) the choice of input, outside of the dedicated nonce area, fed into the Proof-of-Work function should not change its difficulty to evaluate and (2) every Proof-of-Work function execution should be independent. NOTE: a number of persons feel that this methodology is a benign mining optimization, not a vulnerability

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 7.5 HIGH from ADP

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Problem Types: CWE-338 | n/a | CWE-338 CWE-338 Use of Cryptographically Weak Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG)


VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1ADPDECLARED7.5HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
3.1134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0Secondary7.5HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
3.0[email protected]Primary7.5HIGHCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
2.0[email protected]Primary5AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

CVSS v3.0 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

CVSS v2.0 Breakdown

Access Vector
Network
Access Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Partial
Integrity
None
Availability
None

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

NVD Known Affected Configurations (CPE 2.3)

TypeVendorProductVersionUpdateEditionLanguage
Application Bitcoin Bitcoin - All All All

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Na N/a affected n/a Not specified
ADP Bitcoin Bitcoin affected - Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
www.mit.edu/~jlrubin//public/pdfs/Asicboost.pdf af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 www.mit.edu Technical Description
[bitcoin-dev] Treating ‘ASICBOOST’ as a Security Vulnerability af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 lists.linuxfoundation.org Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
[bitcoin-dev] Treating ‘ASICBOOST’ as a Security Vulnerability af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 lists.linuxfoundation.org Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
[bitcoin-dev] Treating ‘ASICBOOST’ as a Security Vulnerability af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 lists.linuxfoundation.org Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
Bitcoin Proof-of-Work Algorithm CVE-2017-9230 Security Weakness af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 www.securityfocus.com Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1604/1604.00575.pdf af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 arxiv.org Technical Description
[bitcoin-dev] BIP proposal: Inhibiting a covert attack on the Bitcoin POW function af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 lists.linuxfoundation.org Mailing List, Technical Description, Third Party Advisory
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

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