wycheproof-ecdh-cve-2017-8932

ECDH: Cve-2017-8932

A bug in the standard library ScalarMult implementation of curve P-256 for amd64 architectures in Go before 1.7.6 and 1.8.x before 1.8.2 causes incorrect results to be generated for specific input points.

ACCEPT

Your service should accept this one.

Stated as the outcome to assert against, so a suite compares with this rather than hardcoding a result and getting it backwards.

An adaptive attack can be mounted to progressively extract the scalar input to ScalarMult by submitting crafted points and observing failures to the derive correct output. Demonstrated by 8 test vectors across 4 vector documents in Project Wycheproof.

Provenance

Kind
vulnerabilityA published weakness exists for this. Failing it is a known exploit path.
Source
wycheproof
Clause
SEC 1 §3.3
CVE
CVE-2017-8932
Weakness
none

Test keys only. Nothing here is a statement about any particular service: the expected outcome above is what an application ought to do, not evidence that yours does.

Reference

URL or embedded key?

Your app needs the public key to check a token. It can fetch it from a URL at runtime, or carry it as a file. Both are normal. The trade is always the same one: who controls rotation.

Fetch from the URLEmbed the key
RotationAutomatic on next fetchNeeds a redeploy
NetworkDepends on the URLNone
TrustWhatever the endpoint servesPinned to one key
SuitsA signer that rotates keysOffline, air-gapped, or pinned

Use the URL when the signer rotates its keys, which is what every identity provider does. That is why it became the norm, and it is usually a one-line config change.

Embed the key when you cannot make a network call while checking a token, or when you want your app pinned to one key so a compromised endpoint could not introduce another. Export the PEM from the Keysets tab.

One catch worth knowing: Spring Boot's public-key-location only loads RSA keys. An ES256 or EdDSA key needs a custom decoder, or the URL.