Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2024-9143

high Nessus Plugin ID 231619

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

- Issue summary: Use of the low-level GF(2^m) elliptic curve APIs with untrusted explicit values for the field polynomial can lead to out-of-bounds memory reads or writes. Impact summary: Out of bound memory writes can lead to an application crash or even a possibility of a remote code execution, however, in all the protocols involving Elliptic Curve Cryptography that we're aware of, either only named curves are supported, or, if explicit curve parameters are supported, they specify an X9.62 encoding of binary (GF(2^m)) curves that can't represent problematic input values. Thus the likelihood of existence of a vulnerable application is low. In particular, the X9.62 encoding is used for ECC keys in X.509 certificates, so problematic inputs cannot occur in the context of processing X.509 certificates. Any problematic use-cases would have to be using an exotic curve encoding. The affected APIs include:
EC_GROUP_new_curve_GF2m(), EC_GROUP_new_from_params(), and various supporting BN_GF2m_*() functions.
Applications working with exotic explicit binary (GF(2^m)) curve parameters, that make it possible to represent invalid field polynomials with a zero constant term, via the above or similar APIs, may terminate abruptly as a result of reading or writing outside of array bounds. Remote code execution cannot easily be ruled out. The FIPS modules in 3.3, 3.2, 3.1 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue.
(CVE-2024-9143)

- Use of the low-level GF(2^m) elliptic curve APIs with untrusted explicit values for the field polynomial can lead to out-of-bounds memory reads or writes. (CVE-2024-9143)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 231619

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2024_9143.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 3/6/2025

Updated: 3/6/2025

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 2.2

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.4

Temporal Score: 4

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2024-9143

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.3

Temporal Score: 3.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

CVSS v4

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.2

Threat Score: 4.6

Threat Vector: CVSS:4.0/E:U

Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Vulnerability Information

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, global_settings/vendor_unpatched

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 10/16/2024

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2024-9143