CVE-2017-9230

Description

The Bitcoin Proof-of-Work algorithm does not consider a certain attack methodology related to 80-byte block headers with a variety of initial 64-byte chunks followed by the same 16-byte chunk, multiple candidate root values ending with the same 4 bytes, and calculations involving sqrt numbers. This violates the security assumptions of (1) the choice of input, outside of the dedicated nonce area, fed into the Proof-of-Work function should not change its difficulty to evaluate and (2) every Proof-of-Work function execution should be independent. NOTE: a number of persons feel that this methodology is a benign mining optimization, not a vulnerability

Weakness classification

• CWE-338: Use of Cryptographically Weak Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG)

Primary references

• cve@mitre.org — Technical Description
• cve@mitre.org — Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
• cve@mitre.org — Technical Description
• cve@mitre.org — Mailing List, Technical Description, Third Party Advisory
• cve@mitre.org — Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
• cve@mitre.org — Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
• cve@mitre.org — Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
• af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 — Technical Description
• af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 — Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
• af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 — Technical Description
• af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 — Mailing List, Technical Description, Third Party Advisory
• af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 — Mailing List, Third Party Advisory