Description
A vulnerability was detected in PuTTY 0.83. Affected is the function eddsa_verify of the file crypto/ecc-ssh.c of the component Ed25519 Signature Handler. The manipulation results in improper verification of cryptographic signature. The attack may be performed from remote. The attack requires a high level of complexity. The exploitability is told to be difficult. The exploit is now public and may be used. The real existence of this vulnerability is still doubted at the moment. The patch is identified as af996b5ec27ab79bae3882071b9d6acf16044549. It is advisable to implement a patch to correct this issue. The vendor was contacted early, responded in a very professional manner and quickly released a patch for the affected product. However, at the moment there is no proof that this flaw might have any real-world impact.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | PuTTY | 0.83 | — |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | putty | 0.84-1 | — |
| Debian 13 | putty | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 12 | putty | No fix yet | — |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.10 | putty | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | putty | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 25.10 | putty | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 LTS | putty | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | putty | No fix yet | — |
Show 3 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 20.04 LTS | putty | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 18.04 LTS | putty | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 16.04 LTS | putty | No fix yet | — |
References
- VDB-352429 | PuTTY Ed25519 Signature ecc-ssh.c eddsa_verify signature verification vdb-entry technical-description
- VDB-352429 | CTI Indicators (IOB, IOC, IOA) signature permissions-required
- Submit #775576 | PuTTY Project (Simon Tatham) PuTTY 0.83 Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature third-party-advisory
- https://github.com/py-thok/putty-ed25519-malleability-s-plus-l related
- https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist/eddsa-overlarge-s.html related
- https://github.com/py-thok/putty-ed25519-malleability-s-plus-l/blob/main/poc.py exploit
- https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/putty.git;a=commitdiff;h=af996b5ec27ab79bae3882071b9d6acf16044549 patch
- https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8032#section-8.4 related