CVE-2017-9230
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.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (3.25%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
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
- CVSS 3.1
- 7.5 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- EPSS
- 3.25% probability · 88th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-338
- Affected
- bitcoin/bitcoin
- Source
- cve@mitre.org
References
- http://www.mit.edu/~jlrubin//public/pdfs/Asicboost.pdfTechnical Description
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/98657Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1604/1604.00575.pdfTechnical Description
- https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-April/013996.htmlMailing List, Technical Description, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-May/014349.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-May/014351.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-May/014352.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- http://www.mit.edu/~jlrubin//public/pdfs/Asicboost.pdfTechnical Description
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/98657Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1604/1604.00575.pdfTechnical Description
- https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-April/013996.htmlMailing List, Technical Description, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-May/014349.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-May/014351.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-May/014352.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.