Vulnerability in Athena-Scs Idprotect

CVE-2019-15809

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.

EPSS: 0.005 (38.2th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 4.7 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

  • cve@mitre.org (Technical Description, Third Party Advisory, x_refsource_MISC)
  • cve@mitre.org (Technical Description, Third Party Advisory, x_refsource_MISC)
  • cve@mitre.org (Product, x_refsource_MISC)
  • cve@mitre.org (US Government Resource, Third Party Advisory, x_refsource_MISC)
  • cve@mitre.org (mailing-list, x_refsource_MLIST, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
  • cve@mitre.org (Exploit, Third Party Advisory, x_refsource_MISC)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2019-15809?
CVE-2019-15809 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Athena-Scs Idprotect, classified under Observable Discrepancy. CVSS score: 4.7/10. Published 2019-10-03.
How severe is CVE-2019-15809?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.7 out of 10.