GNU GRUB (aka GRUB2) through 2.12 does not use a constant-time algorithm for grub_crypto_memcmp and thus allows side-channel attacks.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2024-56738 is rated Low Risk (23.7/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.03%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
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 | 2026-02-06 | 0.13% | 0.03% | -0.10% |
| 2 | 2025-11-21 | 0.17% | 0.13% | -0.04% |
| 3 | 2025-11-18 | — | 0.17% | — |
Full EPSS history (9 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.3 | 3.1 | MEDIUM |
|
3.9 | 1.4 | 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2024-56738 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (grub2), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): open 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2024-56738 |
redhat
|
medium | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-56738 |
suse
|
medium | — | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-56738/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2024-56738 medium priority: Ubuntu including 3 source packages (grub2, grub2-signed, grub2-unsigned), 29 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 15, not-affected 8, ignored 6. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2024-56738 |
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?66603 | Issue Tracking Third Party Advisory |