Elliptic Uses a Cryptographic Primitive with a Risky Implementation
The ECDSA implementation of the Elliptic package generates incorrect signatures if an interim value of 'k' (as computed based on step 3.2 of RFC 6979 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6979 ) has leading zeros and is susceptible to cryptanalysis, which can lead to secret key exposure. This happens, because the byte-length of 'k' is incorrectly computed, resulting in its getting truncated during the computation. Legitimate transactions or communications will be broken as a result. Furthermore, due to the nature of the fault, attackers could–under certain conditions–derive the secret key, if they could get their hands on both a faulty signature generated by a vulnerable version of Elliptic and a correct signature for the same inputs.
This issue affects all known versions of Elliptic (at the time of writing, versions less than or equal to 6.6.1).
Affected software
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| Platform | Package | Vulnerable versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| npm package | elliptic | <= 6.6.1 | no fix |
References
- CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L- Weakness (CWE)
CWE-1240- Platform
- npm
- Package
elliptic- Disclosed
- 08.01.2026
- Updated
- 11.10.2026 10:22
Sources and licenses
OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-848j-6mx2-7j84 - CC BY 4.0
Vulnerability history: elliptic
All published vulnerabilities of this package (npm package), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.
- Total entries
- 9
- First → latest
- 07.2020 01.2026
- Without a fix
- 1
- Exploited in attacks
- 0
Severity breakdown
- Critical 1
- High 1
- Medium 1
- Low 6
Disclosures per year
- 2020: 1
- 2021: 1
- 2022: 0
- 2023: 0
- 2024: 5
- 2025: 1
- 2026: 1
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