CVE-2026-13758 PUBLISHED

CryptX versions before 0.088_001 for Perl compare AEAD authentication tags in non-constant time in the streaming decrypt_done path

Assigner: CPANSec
Reserved: 29.06.2026 Published: 29.06.2026 Updated: 30.06.2026

CryptX versions before 0.088_001 for Perl compare AEAD authentication tags in non-constant time in the streaming decrypt_done path.

The decrypt_done($tag) form compares it against the computed tag with memNE (memcmp() != 0), which short-circuits on the first differing byte, so its run time depends on the number of matching leading bytes. This affects all five AEAD modes: GCM, CCM, ChaCha20Poly1305, EAX and OCB. The one-shot *_decrypt_verify helpers are unaffected; they verify the tag inside libtomcrypt with a constant-time comparison.

The timing difference is a tag-verification oracle. An attacker who can submit many candidate tags for the same nonce, ciphertext and associated data while measuring the timing precisely enough may recover the expected tag byte by byte and forge a message that verifies.

Product Status

Vendor MIK
Product CryptX
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 0 to 0.088_001 (excl.)

Solutions

Upgrade to CryptX 0.088_001 or later.

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-208 Observable Timing Discrepancy CWE