CVE-2022-24884 | Trivial signature forgery in ecdsautils

ecdsautils is a tiny collection of programs used for ECDSA (keygen, sign, verify). `ecdsa_verify_[prepare_]legacy()` does not check whether the signature values `r` and `s` are non-zero. A signature consisting only of zeroes is always considered valid, making it trivial to forge signatures. Requiring multiple signatures from different public keys does not mitigate the issue: `ecdsa_verify_list_legacy()` will accept an arbitrary number of such forged signatures. Both the `ecdsautil verify` CLI command and the libecdsautil library are affected. The issue has been fixed in ecdsautils 0.4.1. All older versions of ecdsautils (including versions before the split into a library and a CLI utility) are vulnerable.

Published: 2022-05-05 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2022-24884 is rated Moderate Risk (60.9/100): CVSS Critical severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.97%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2022-24884

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.12% 0.97% +0.85%
2 2025-11-21 0.54% 0.12% -0.41%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.54% —

Full EPSS history (16 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-24884

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
10.0 3.1 CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 5.8 [email protected]
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2022-24884

OS Trackers for CVE-2022-24884

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2022-24884 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (ecdsautils), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2022-24884
ubuntu medium CVE-2022-24884 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (ecdsautils), 8 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, upstream, xenial): released 5, ignored 2, not-affected 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2022-24884

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-24884

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
ecdsautils_project ecdsautils < 0.4.1 cpe:2.3:a:ecdsautils_project:ecdsautils:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 34 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:34:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 35 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:35:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 36 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:36:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 11.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2022-24884

URL Tags
https://github.com/freifunk-gluon/ecdsautils/commit/1d4b091abdf15ad7b2312535b5b95ad70f6dbd08 Patch Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/freifunk-gluon/ecdsautils/commit/39b6d0a77414fd41614953a0e185c4eefa2f88ad Patch Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/freifunk-gluon/ecdsautils/security/advisories/GHSA-qhcg-9ffp-78pw Third Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/05/msg00007.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/4AKQH5WCBMJA3ODCSNERY6HVX4BX3ITG/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/G2JT57AAFIEL7JDO2ZBV25JKYME5NU54/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/L7UBR3M4U3LA46BHXYSH7EN5GDG44GK7/
https://www.debian.org/security/2022/dsa-5132 Third Party Advisory
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