# CVE-2019-15809: Information disclosure in n/a

> A timing side-channel in ECDSA signature generation allows local attackers to recover private keys from affected smart cards.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.7 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 3 Oct 2019
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-c76g-76cj-g742

## What is CVE-2019-15809?

CVE-2019-15809 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 3 Oct 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Smart cards from the Athena SCS manufacturer, based on the Atmel Toolbox 00.03.11.05 and the AT90SC chip, contain a timing side channel in ECDSA signature generation. This allows a local attacker, able to measure the duration of hundreds to thousands of signing operations, to compute the private key used. The issue occurs because the Atmel Toolbox 00.03.11.05 contains two versions of ECDSA signature functions, described as fast and secure, but the affected cards chose to use the fast version, which leaks the bit length of the random nonce via timing. This affects Athena IDProtect 010b.0352.0005, Athena IDProtect 010e.1245.0002, Athena IDProtect 0106.0130.0401, Athena IDProtect 010e.1245.0002, Valid S/A IDflex V 010b.0352.0005, SafeNet eToken 4300 010e.1245.0002, TecSec Armored Card 010e.0264.0001, and TecSec Armored Card 108.0264.0001.

Weakness: CWE-203 (Observable Discrepancy)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-15809?

It affects 5 products.


Products: Athena-Scs Idprotect, Cryptsoft S\/a Idflex V, Microchip Atmel Toolbox, Tecsec Armored Card, Thalesgroup Etoken 4300.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-15809?

No fix has been published for CVE-2019-15809 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2019-15809 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-15809 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2019-15809 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-15809 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 3 Oct 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-15809 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-15809/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-15809/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-15809
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-15809
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-15809

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-15809/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.