CVE-2024-41996

A vulnerability was found in the Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral (DHE) Key Agreement Protocol, where a malicious client can exploit the server's public key validation process. By forcing the server to use DHE and validating the order of public keys, the client can trigger expensive server-side modular exponentiation calculations. This issue results in asymmetric resource consumption, potentially leading to a denial of service (DoS) attack by overwhelming the server with computationally intensive operations.

This vulnerability is classified with a Low severity rather than Moderate because it requires specific conditions to be exploitable. The attack depends on the server being configured to use DHE key exchange and perform public key order validation, which is not the default in many configurations. Additionally, while the attack can cause increased CPU usage, leading to a potential denial of service, it does not directly compromise the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the data being exchanged. The impact is limited to resource exhaustion, and mitigations such as rate limiting, alternative key exchange methods, or disabling DHE can effectively reduce the attack surface, making it less impacted than issues that could lead to direct data breaches or system compromise.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.