Ubuntu LinuxOperating system · Canonical

CVE-2015-8804

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.0 Published 2016-02-23
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 3.1.1 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
x86_64/ecc-384-modp.asm in Nettle before 3.2 does not properly handle carry propagation and produces incorrect output in its implementation of the P-384 NIST elliptic curve, which allows attackers to have unspecified impact via unknown vectors.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 14.04= 15.10
NettleApplication
Affected:<= 3.1.1
LeapOperating system
Affected:= 42.1
OpensuseOperating system
Affected:= 13.1= 13.2

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 3.1.1
Vendor patch git.lysator.liu.se →
Recommended fix High confidence

Nettle 3.2 or later

  1. 1. Identify the current Nettle library version installed on the system using package manager (e.g., `dpkg -l | grep nettle` on Debian/Ubuntu, `rpm -qa | grep nettle` on RHEL/SUSE)
  2. 2. Upgrade Nettle to version 3.2 or later using the system's package manager (e.g., `apt-get update && apt-get install nettle` on Ubuntu, `zypper update nettle` on openSUSE, or `yum update nettle` on RHEL-based systems)
  3. 3. Verify the upgrade was successful by checking the installed version matches or exceeds 3.2
  4. 4. Restart any services or applications that depend on the Nettle library to ensure they load the updated version
Caveat Cryptographic library upgrades may introduce subtle API or behavior changes; test in staging if possible, but the severity (CVSS 9.8) warrants immediate deployment

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can identify the exact fixed release, upgrade, and verify it in staging — typical engagement from $2,300. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2015-8804 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2015-8804 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data