OpenSSL disclosed CVE-2018-0737, a low-severity cache-timing side channel in RSA private-key generation affecting versions before 1.0.2p and 1.1.0i. Three non-constant-time execution paths, including BN_gcd, could leak sensitive state to an attacker able to run a precisely timed cache attack on the same physical system while a key is generated, potentially allowing recovery of the newly generated RSA private key. Researchers demonstrated recovery through the BN_gcd path at an approximately 30% success rate across more than 10,000 cluster trials.
OpenSSL incorporated fixes into 1.0.2p and 1.1.0i, with patches also available through upstream commits 349a41da1 and 6939eab03. Exploitation requires stringent local or adjacent-system access and observation at the moment of key generation, limiting practical exposure; keys generated and retained in hardware security modules are not affected. Red Hat issued fixes for affected RHEL 7 and later systems and JBoss Core Services products.

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OpenSSL disclosed CVE-2018-0737, a low-severity cache-timing side-channel vulnerability in RSA key generation that could allow local or adjacent attackers to recover a newly generated private key. It published fixes in the 1.0.2 and 1.1.0 branch commits, to be included in OpenSSL 1.0.2p and 1.1.0i, while the researchers also disclosed technical details to oss-security.
The researchers notified the distros mailing list about the OpenSSL RSA key-generation vulnerabilities ahead of public disclosure.
The researchers notified OpenSSL again with a proof of concept for the RSA key-generation cache-timing attack and set a public-disclosure embargo for April 16 at 15:00 UTC.
Researchers initially notified OpenSSL, LibreSSL, and BoringSSL about the RSA key-generation cache-timing issues. LibreSSL subsequently fixed the issues in its codebase.
Red Hat addressed CVE-2018-0737 through updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and through advisories for Red Hat JBoss Core Services, including deployments on RHEL 6 and RHEL 7.
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