ubuntu-cve-2021-40529
Vulnerability from osv_ubuntu
Published
2021-09-06 19:15
Modified
2026-04-22 07:40
Summary
Details

The ElGamal implementation in Botan through 2.18.1, as used in Thunderbird and other products, allows plaintext recovery because, during interaction between two cryptographic libraries, a certain dangerous combination of the prime defined by the receiver's public key, the generator defined by the receiver's public key, and the sender's ephemeral exponents can lead to a cross-configuration attack against OpenPGP.

Severity
5.9 (Medium)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
N/A (UNKNOWN)
low
References
To clipboard 

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "libbotan-1.10-0",
            "binary_version": "1.10.5-1+deb7u1ubuntu0.14.04.1+esm1"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:Pro:14.04:LTS",
        "name": "botan1.10",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/botan1.10@1.10.5-1+deb7u1ubuntu0.14.04.1+esm1?arch=source\u0026distro=esm-infra-legacy/trusty"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "1.10.5-1",
        "1.10.5-1ubuntu1",
        "1.10.5-1+deb7u1ubuntu0.14.04.1",
        "1.10.5-1+deb7u1ubuntu0.14.04.1+esm1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "libbotan-1.10-1",
            "binary_version": "1.10.12-1"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:16.04:LTS",
        "name": "botan1.10",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/botan1.10@1.10.12-1?arch=source\u0026distro=xenial"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "1.10.10-6",
        "1.10.12-1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "botan",
            "binary_version": "2.4.0-5ubuntu1"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "libbotan-2-4",
            "binary_version": "2.4.0-5ubuntu1"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "python3-botan",
            "binary_version": "2.4.0-5ubuntu1"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:18.04:LTS",
        "name": "botan",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/botan@2.4.0-5ubuntu1?arch=source\u0026distro=bionic"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "2.4.0-3",
        "2.4.0-4",
        "2.4.0-5ubuntu1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "libbotan-1.10-1",
            "binary_version": "1.10.17-0.1"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:18.04:LTS",
        "name": "botan1.10",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/botan1.10@1.10.17-0.1?arch=source\u0026distro=bionic"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "1.10.16-1",
        "1.10.17-0.1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "botan",
            "binary_version": "2.12.1-2build1"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "libbotan-2-12",
            "binary_version": "2.12.1-2build1"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "python3-botan",
            "binary_version": "2.12.1-2build1"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:20.04:LTS",
        "name": "botan",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/botan@2.12.1-2build1?arch=source\u0026distro=focal"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "2.9.0-2",
        "2.9.0-2build1",
        "2.12.1-2",
        "2.12.1-2build1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "botan",
            "binary_version": "2.19.1+dfsg-2ubuntu1+esm1"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "libbotan-2-19",
            "binary_version": "2.19.1+dfsg-2ubuntu1+esm1"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "python3-botan",
            "binary_version": "2.19.1+dfsg-2ubuntu1+esm1"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:Pro:22.04:LTS",
        "name": "botan",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/botan@2.19.1+dfsg-2ubuntu1+esm1?arch=source\u0026distro=esm-apps/jammy"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "2.17.3+dfsg-3",
        "2.19.1+dfsg-2ubuntu1",
        "2.19.1+dfsg-2ubuntu1+esm1"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [],
  "details": "The ElGamal implementation in Botan through 2.18.1, as used in Thunderbird and other products, allows plaintext recovery because, during interaction between two cryptographic libraries, a certain dangerous combination of the prime defined by the receiver\u0027s public key, the generator defined by the receiver\u0027s public key, and the sender\u0027s ephemeral exponents can lead to a cross-configuration attack against OpenPGP.",
  "id": "UBUNTU-CVE-2021-40529",
  "modified": "2026-04-22T07:40:09Z",
  "published": "2021-09-06T19:15:00Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-40529"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/923"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://github.com/randombit/botan/pull/2790"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://ibm.github.io/system-security-research-updates/2021/07/20/insecurity-elgamal-pt1"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://ibm.github.io/system-security-research-updates/2021/09/06/insecurity-elgamal-pt2"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-40529"
    }
  ],
  "related": [],
  "schema_version": "1.7.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    },
    {
      "score": "low",
      "type": "Ubuntu"
    }
  ],
  "upstream": [
    "CVE-2021-40529"
  ]
}



Log in or create an account to share your comment.




Tags
Taxonomy of the tags.





Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

Sightings

Author Source Type Date Other

Nomenclature

  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.


Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.