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

EPSS: 0.033 (87.0th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

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.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

  • cve@mitre.org (Technical Description, x_refsource_MISC)
  • cve@mitre.org (Technical Description, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory, x_refsource_MISC)
  • cve@mitre.org (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory, x_refsource_MISC)
  • cve@mitre.org (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry, x_refsource_BID)
  • cve@mitre.org (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory, x_refsource_MISC)
  • cve@mitre.org (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory, x_refsource_MISC)
  • cve@mitre.org (Technical Description, x_refsource_MISC)

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.