Vulnerability Database

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Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2026-54872 — openssl / openssl

Observable Timing Discrepancy

Issue summary: The generic elliptic-curve scalar multiplication used for ECDSA and SM2 signature operations with curves that do not have a dedicated implementation leaks information about the secret nonce through timing.

Impact summary: An attacker able to measure signing times may learn information about the per-signature secret nonce, which over many signatures can, via a lattice / Hidden Number Problem attack, lead to recovery of the private key.

CWE: CWE-208: Observable Timing Discrepancy

Description: The generic elliptic-curve scalar multiplication used for curves that do not have a dedicated constant-time implementation pads the secret scalar with non-constant-time BIGNUM operations, so the time taken depends on the value of the secret scalar derived from the ECDSA and SM2 nonce.

The leak is very small; observing it requires a large number of measurements. The effect is largest for curves whose group order lies on a machine-word boundary, such as brainpoolP384r1.

Applications using ECDSA signing over the Brainpool and other generic prime curves, and SM2 signing on platforms that use the generic implementation, are vulnerable to this issue.

The NIST curves P-256, P-384 and P-521 use dedicated constant-time implementations and are not affected.

FIPS Impact: no The FIPS modules are not affected: the approved NIST curves used in the FIPS provider have dedicated constant-time implementations and do not use the affected code path.

  • Published: Sep 29, 2026
  • Updated: Oct 23, 2026
  • CVE: CVE-2026-54872
  • Severity: Low
  • Exploit:
  • CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: Low
  • Score: 3.7
  • AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

CWEs:

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Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

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