CVE-2021-4239

Weak encryption and denial of service in github.com/flynn/noise

State
Published
Severity
7.5 High
Published
Dec 27, 2022
Updated
Apr 14, 2025
Reserved
Jul 29, 2022

Read the record on cve.org

Description

The Noise protocol implementation suffers from weakened cryptographic security after encrypting 2^64 messages, and a potential denial of service attack. After 2^64 (~18.4 quintillion) messages are encrypted with the Encrypt function, the nonce counter will wrap around, causing multiple messages to be encrypted with the same key and nonce. In a separate issue, the Decrypt function increments the nonce state even when it fails to decrypt a message. If an attacker can provide an invalid input to the Decrypt function, this will cause the nonce state to desynchronize between the peers, resulting in a failure to encrypt all subsequent messages.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.17.5 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:NCISA-ADP

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
github.com/flynn/noisegithub.com/flynn/noise
  • before 1.0.0Affected

References

Every record here comes from the CVE Program’s CVE List. © 1999–2026 The MITRE Corporation. CVE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. The records are reproduced under the CVE Program terms of use.