ML-KEM key-pair lookup can bind an unrelated or attacker-planted public key, exposing encapsulated shared secrets
- Published
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
Summary
The crypto11 Go library (github.com/eclipse-keypont/crypto11/v2, pre-release 2.0.0 builds) is affected when used for ML-KEM key-pair lookup, where the lookup can return a public key unrelated to the intended private key. As a result, shared secrets produced by encapsulation can be encrypted to an attacker-supplied key, exposing them and any data protected by keys derived from them; the v1 module is not affected.
Summarized by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5. Verify details against the original sources.
Read the original description
In `github.com/eclipse-keypont/crypto11/v2` versions `>= 2.0.0-rc3, <= 2.0.0-rc8`, the ML-KEM key-pair lookup functions (`FindMLKEMKeyPair`, `FindMLKEMKeyPairs`, `FindMLKEMKeyPairsWithAttributes`) locate the public half of an ML-KEM key pair by `CKA_ID`/`CKA_LABEL` and never verify it against the private key. In addition, the "ID only" fallback search runs even when the private key has no `CKA_ID`, so the search template reduces to the public-key class and the ML-KEM key type and the first ML-KEM public key on the token is returned. `Encapsulate()` on the resulting key pair encrypts the fresh shared secret to that key, so its owner — not the holder of the private key the caller looked up — can recover the secret. An attacker who can open an unauthenticated session on the token and plant a public `CKK_ML_KEM` object carrying the victim's `CKA_ID`/`CKA_LABEL` receives the shared secrets for encapsulations performed through the substituted key pair, compromising the confidentiality of those secrets and of everything protected by keys derived from them. The v1 module paths have no ML-KEM support and are not affected.
Timeline
- CVE published
- First seen by cve.now
Affected versions
- crypto11
From 2.0.0-rc3 · through 2.0.0-rc8