CVE-2019-14853

possible DoS in signature verification and signature malleability

Workarounds

It may be possible to prevent the Denial of Service by catching also UnexpectedDER, IndexError and AssertionError exceptions. That list hasn't been verified to be complete though. If those exceptions are raised, the signature verification process should consider the signature to be invalid.

To remediate signature malleability and the Denial of Service vulnerability, it may be possible to first verify that the signature is properly DER formatted ECDSA-Sig-Value, as defined in RFC3279, before passing it to verify() or verify_digest() methods. If the signature is determined to not follow the DER or encode a different structure, the signature verification process should consider the signature to be invalid.

References

https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/Transaction_Malleability

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory please open an issue in python-ecdsa project.

Code using VerifyingKey.verify() and VerifyingKey.verify_digest() may receive exceptions other than the documented BadSignatureError when signatures are malformed. If those other exceptions are not caught, they may lead to program termination and thus Denial of Service

Code using VerifyingKey.verify() and VerifyingKey.verify_digest() with sigdecode option using ecdsa.util.sigdecode_der will accept signatures even if they are not properly formatted DER. This makes the signatures malleable. It impacts only applications that later sign the signatures or verify signatures of signatures, e.g. Bitcoin.

All versions between 0.5 and 0.13.2 (inclusive) are thought to be vulnerable. Code before 0.5 may be vulnerable but didn't receive extended analysis to rule this issue out.

CVE-2019-14853 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). The vector is network-reachable, no privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (0.13.3); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Kodem intelligence

The patches have been merged to master branch in https://github.com/warner/python-ecdsa/pull/115.
The backported patches for a release in the 0.13 branch are in https://github.com/warner/python-ecdsa/pull/124

They are part of the 0.13.3 release.

There are no plans to backport them to earlier releases.

1. What is CVE-2019-14853? CVE-2019-14853 is a high-severity security vulnerability in ecdsa (pip), affecting versions < 0.13.3. It is fixed in 0.13.3.
2. How severe is CVE-2019-14853? CVE-2019-14853 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
3. Which versions of ecdsa are affected by CVE-2019-14853? ecdsa (pip) versions < 0.13.3 is affected.
4. Is there a fix for CVE-2019-14853? Yes. CVE-2019-14853 is fixed in 0.13.3. Upgrade to this version or later.
5. Is CVE-2019-14853 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2019-14853 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
6. What actually determines whether CVE-2019-14853 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
7. How do I fix CVE-2019-14853? Upgrade ecdsa to 0.13.3 or later.