CVE-2018-16869 Information disclosure in nettle
A local attacker can exploit a side-channel in Nettle to extract plaintext or downgrade TLS connections via a padding oracle attack.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2018-16869?
CVE-2018-16869 is a medium-severity vulnerability in [UNKNOWN] nettle, published on 3 Dec 2018. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A Bleichenbacher type side-channel based padding oracle attack was found in the way nettle handles endian conversion of RSA decrypted PKCS#1 v1.5 data. An attacker who is able to run a process on the same physical core as the victim process, could use this flaw extract plaintext or in some cases downgrade any TLS connections to a vulnerable server.
Weakness: CWE-203
Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-16869?
It affects 1 product.
Linux distribution packages (2)
libnettle SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 | All versions | 3.4-4.3.1 |
libnettle SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Desktop Applications 15 | All versions | 3.4-4.3.1 |
Products include Nettle Project Nettle.
How do I fix CVE-2018-16869?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2018-16869 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-16869 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in [UNKNOWN] nettle
Sources
Also known as CLSA-2024-1709839956, CLSA-2024-1734027856, CLSA-2025-1757947030, DEBIAN-CVE-2018-16869, GHSA-575w-jrpq-q9xv, MGASA-2019-0024 and 2 more.