Vulnerability in Bitcoin
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 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
Published · last modified .
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.033 (87.9th percentile), scored .
Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 88th percentile — 87.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.033 · newest: 0.033 · change: 0.000
Affected products
Weakness classification (CWE)
Public proof-of-concept exploits
References
- arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1604/1604.00575.pdf (Technical Description)
- lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-April/013996.html (Technical Description, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
- lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-May/014351.html (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
- www.securityfocus.com/bid/98657 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry)
- lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-May/014352.html (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
- lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-May/014349.html (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
- www.mit.edu/~jlrubin//public/pdfs/Asicboost.pdf (Technical Description)
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2017-9230?
- CVE-2017-9230 is a high-severity vulnerability in Bitcoin, classified under Use of Cryptographically Weak Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG). CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2017-05-24.
- How severe is CVE-2017-9230?
- High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.
- Is CVE-2017-9230 known to be exploited?
- 2 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.