Widely-Used PuTTY SSH Client Found Vulnerable to Key Recovery Attack

Widely-Used PuTTY SSH Client Found Vulnerable to Key Recovery Attack

April 16, 2024 at 07:27AM

PuTTY SSH and Telnet client versions 0.68 through 0.80 are vulnerable to a flaw allowing recovery of private keys. The issue, designated CVE-2024-31497, was discovered by Fabian Bäumer and Marcus Brinkmann. The concern affects PuTTY and several other related products, mitigated in recent versions. Users are advised to update and revoke compromised keys.

Key Takeaways from the Meeting Notes:

1. PuTTY Secure Shell (SSH) and Telnet client have a critical vulnerability impacting versions 0.68 through 0.80, allowing potential recovery of NIST P-521 private keys.
2. The flaw, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-31497, was discovered by researchers Fabian Bäumer and Marcus Brinkmann of Ruhr University Bochum.
3. The vulnerability could compromise the private key, allowing an attacker to forge signatures and potentially log in to servers using the compromised key.
4. Other products impacted by the same vulnerability include FileZilla, WinSCP, TortoiseGit, and TortoiseSVN, with updates provided to address the issue.
5. The issue has been addressed in PuTTY 0.81, FileZilla 3.67.0, WinSCP 6.3.3, and TortoiseGit 2.15.0.1, with a recommended workaround for TortoiseSVN users until a patch becomes available.
6. Mitigation includes revoking compromised ECDSA NIST-P521 keys from authorized_keys files on SSH servers.

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