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Fencer Intel
critical 9.8

CVE-2021-43568 json

ecdsa-elixir fails to check signatures, vulnerable to message forging

published 5y ago modified 4mo ago also GHSA-xx36-6rv4-gj8r , EUVD-2022-5873

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.1%
EPSS 1.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 64%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The verify function in the Stark Bank Elixir ECDSA library (ecdsa-elixir) 1.0.0 fails to check that the signature is non-zero, which allows attackers to forge signatures on arbitrary messages.

Patch / fix

  • hex ecdsa-elixir 1.0.1

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Exploit prediction

1.06% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 64% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • research.nccgroup.com https://research.nccgroup.com/2021/11/08/technical-advisory-arbitrary-signature-forgery-in-stark-bank-ecdsa-libraries/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
GitHub 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
hex ecdsa-elixir
>=1.0.0, <1.0.1
1.0.1

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-347 Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.