CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-36647 — Arm Mbed Tls security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 4.7

Use of a Broken or Risky Cryptographic Algorithm in the function mbedtls_mpi_exp_mod() in lignum.c in Mbed TLS Mbed TLS all versions before 3.0.0, 2.27.0 or 2.16.11 allows attackers with access to precise enough timing and memory access information (typically an untrusted operating system attacking a secure enclave such as SGX or the TrustZone secure world) to recover the private keys used in RSA.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
4.7 (3.1)
Published
2023-01-17
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-327

Affected products

  • arm / mbed_tls
  • trustedfirmware / mbed_tls

Showing 2 representative product identities from 3 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Cryptography, certificate, signature, and channel validation

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Inventory affected algorithms, key uses, trust stores, certificate validation settings, random sources, and plaintext channels across clients and services.
  • Determine which secrets, identities, signatures, or data protections depend on the affected primitive or validation path.
  • Check debug, compatibility, fallback, and hostname or audience override settings in build and runtime configuration.

Remediate safely

  • Use a maintained platform cryptographic API with approved algorithms, modes, parameters, randomness, and full peer identity validation.
  • Remove insecure fallback and validation bypasses; separate keys by purpose and load them from managed secret storage.
  • Plan rotation or reissuance for affected keys, certificates, tokens, hashes, or ciphertext and document compatibility sequencing.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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