Acoustic Side-Channel Attack on GnuPG RSA Key Generation

CVE-2013-4576 · LOW Severity

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

GnuPG 1.x before 1.4.16 generates RSA keys using sequences of introductions with certain patterns that introduce a side channel, which allows physically proximate attackers to extract RSA keys via a chosen-ciphertext attack and acoustic cryptanalysis during decryption. NOTE: applications are not typically expected to protect themselves from acoustic side-channel attacks, since this is arguably the responsibility of the physical device. Accordingly, issues of this type would not normally receive a CVE identifier. However, for this issue, the developer has specified a security policy in which GnuPG should offer side-channel resistance, and developer-specified security-policy violations are within the scope of CVE.

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