RSA plaintext recovery via decryption timing oracle
Published Jan 31, 2024 · Updated Nov 4, 2025
Timing side channel in Mbed TLS 2.x before 2.28.7 and 3.x before 3.5.2 allows local users to recover RSA plaintext via chosen-ciphertext probes. During blinded RSA decryption, the final modular multiplication and integer-to-byte conversion take input-dependent time, exposing whether high plaintext bits are zero. The attack requires precise local or near-network timing and a large number of decryption messages; it discloses plaintext rather than the private key.
Summary
What happened
Timing side channel in Mbed TLS 2.x before 2.28.7 and 3.x before 3.5.2 allows local users to recover RSA plaintext via chosen-ciphertext probes. During blinded RSA decryption, the final modular multiplication and integer-to-byte conversion take input-dependent time, exposing whether high plaintext bits are zero. The attack requires precise local or near-network timing and a large number of decryption messages; it discloses plaintext rather than the private key.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2024-23170
- Published
- Jan 31, 2024
- Updated
- Nov 4, 2025
- Vendor
- Unknown vendor
- Product
- Unknown product
- Classifications
- CWE-203, CWE-385
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jan 31, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Nov 4, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Affected products and versions are unavailable in this record.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Public exploit references
- Marvin Toolkit timing-oracle test suiteproof of concept · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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