CVE-2021-40529
Publication date 6 September 2021
Last updated 26 August 2025
Ubuntu priority
Cvss 3 Severity Score
Description
The ElGamal implementation in Botan through 2.18.1, as used in Thunderbird and other products, allows plaintext recovery because, during interaction between two cryptographic libraries, a certain dangerous combination of the prime defined by the receiver's public key, the generator defined by the receiver's public key, and the sender's ephemeral exponents can lead to a cross-configuration attack against OpenPGP.
Status
| Package | Ubuntu Release | Status |
|---|---|---|
| botan | 25.10 questing |
Not affected
|
| 25.04 plucky |
Not affected
|
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial | Ignored end of standard support | |
| 14.04 LTS trusty | Not in release | |
| botan1.10 | 25.10 questing | Not in release |
| 25.04 plucky | Not in release | |
| 24.04 LTS noble | Not in release | |
| 22.04 LTS jammy | Not in release | |
| 20.04 LTS focal | Not in release | |
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial |
Needs evaluation
|
|
| 14.04 LTS trusty |
Needs evaluation
|
Severity score breakdown
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Base score |
|
| Attack vector | Network |
| Attack complexity | High |
| Privileges required | None |
| User interaction | None |
| Scope | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | High |
| Integrity impact | None |
| Availability impact | None |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N |
References
Other references
- https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/923
- https://github.com/randombit/botan/pull/2790
- https://ibm.github.io/system-security-research-updates/2021/07/20/insecurity-elgamal-pt1
- https://ibm.github.io/system-security-research-updates/2021/09/06/insecurity-elgamal-pt2
- https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-40529