vulnwire
7.5high

CVE-2017-9230

The Bitcoin Proof-of-Work algorithm does not consider a certain attack methodology related to 80-byte block headers with a variety of initi…

Published 9 y ago · modified 4 mo ago · JSON

CVSS
7.5
v3.1 · CNA
CISA KEV
No
not known exploited
EPSS
3.3%
percentile 88%
Public exploits
0
none known

The 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

CISA SSVC assessment

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction (EPSS)

3.25% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 88% of all scored CVEs.

CVSS scores

Assigned byVersionScoreVector
CISA ADP3.17.5CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CNA3.17.5CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD3.07.5CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD2.05.0AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Affected products

  • bitcoin bitcoin

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-338 Use of Cryptographically Weak Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG)

References

Sources

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