Bitcoin
CVE-2017-9230
HIGH
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A04:2025 - Cryptographic Failures
ASVS 5.0
V11 - Cryptography Cryptographic PRNG selection
|
| Impact | CVSS score of 7.5 (HIGH). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction not required. EPSS exploitation probability: 0.81%. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | This vulnerability can be exploited remotely over the network. Successful exploitation could compromise the high-severity affected system. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
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,. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
RemediationAI
No vendor patch is available at time of analysis. Monitor vendor advisories for updates. Apply vendor patches when available. Implement network segmentation and monitoring as interim mitigations.
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Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified under CWE-338. 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 Affected products include: Bitcoin.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionCVE.org
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
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
Affected Products (CPE)CVE.org
Bitcoin-Qt 0.5.0.x before 0.5.0.5; 0.5.1.x, 0.5.2.x, and 0.5.3.x before 0.5.3.1; and 0.6.x before 0.6.0rc4 on Windows do
Memory management and protection issues in Bitcoin Core v22 allows attackers to modify the stored sending address within
bitcoind in Bitcoin Core through 0.21.0 can create a new file in an arbitrary directory (e.g., outside the ~/.bitcoin di
Bitcoin Core before 0.19.0 might allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code when another application unsafely pass
Unspecified vulnerability in bitcoind and Bitcoin-Qt before 0.4.6, 0.5.x before 0.5.5, 0.6.0.x before 0.6.0.7, and 0.6.x
The Bitcoin protocol, as used in bitcoind before 0.4.4, wxBitcoin, Bitcoin-Qt, and other programs, does not properly han
bitcoind and Bitcoin-Qt 0.8.0 and earlier allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (electricity consumption)
The alert functionality in bitcoind and Bitcoin-Qt before 0.7.0 supports different character representations of the same
bitcoind and Bitcoin-Qt before 0.4.9rc2, 0.5.x before 0.5.8rc2, 0.6.x before 0.6.5rc2, and 0.7.x before 0.7.3rc2, and wx
Bitcoin Core before 0.20.0 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a malformed GETDATA
Bitcoin Core before 0.15.0 allows a denial of service (OOM kill of a daemon process) via a flood of minimum difficulty h
Bitcoin Core before 0.20.0 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a crafted INV m
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB