dbcve.org
Operating system

CVE-2017-13091

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.0 Published 2018-07-13
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
80/100
Remediation priority · High
Zero-click

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
The P1735 IEEE standard describes flawed methods for encrypting electronic-design intellectual property (IP), as well as the management of access rights for such IP, including improperly specified padding in CBC mode allows use of an EDA tool as a decryption oracle. The methods are flawed and, in the most egregious cases, enable attack vectors that allow recovery of the entire underlying plaintext IP. Implementations of IEEE P1735 may be weak to cryptographic attacks that allow an attacker to obtain plaintext intellectual property without the key, among other impacts.

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 · moderate confidence

IEEE P1735 standard for encrypting electronic design IP contains flawed CBC mode padding specifications that enable EDA tools to function as decryption oracles. Attackers can exploit this to recover plaintext IP without cryptographic keys, effectively defeating the encryption protection mechanism for hardware designs.

MitigationReplace or update EDA tool implementations to use properly specified cryptographic padding, disable decryption oracle behavior, and implement authenticated encryption; consider migrating to updated IEEE P1735 revisions if available.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

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
Operating system
Affected:all versions

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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify EDA tools in the environment
    Inventory all Electronic Design Automation software installed (e.g., Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, Siemens EDA, or other commercial or open-source tools). Check installed programs, license servers, or development environments used for hardware design.
    Affected if Any EDA tool that implements IEEE P1735 encryption for IP protection is present
  2. Locate IEEE P1735 encrypted IP files
    Search project directories, design libraries, and IP repositories for files encrypted using the IEEE P1735 standard. Look for file extensions or metadata indicating encrypted hardware IP (commonly .v, .vhdl, .lib, .gds, or proprietary encrypted formats).
    Affected if Encrypted IP files using IEEE P1735 specification exist in the environment
  3. Verify EDA tool IP encryption configuration
    Examine EDA tool configuration files, license settings, and project settings for IP encryption parameters. Look for references to 'P1735', 'IP encryption', 'CBC mode', or 'padding' in tool options or documentation.
    Affected if EDA tools are configured to use IEEE P1735 encryption with CBC mode padding
  4. Check for decryption oracle behavior
    Review EDA tool behavior when processing malformed or tampered encrypted IP files. Observe if the tool returns padding error messages, accepts modified ciphertext, or reveals information about plaintext structure during decryption operations.
    Affected if EDA tools exhibit decryption oracle behavior (accepting modified ciphertext or revealing padding/format errors)
  5. Identify IP protection mechanism in use
    Inspect design workflows and toolchains to determine if hardware IP is protected through IEEE P1735 encryption versus alternative methods like physical unclonable functions, obfuscation, or newer encryption standards.
    Affected if IEEE P1735-based encryption is the primary IP protection mechanism

If any EDA tool implementing IEEE P1735 CBC mode padding encryption is present and used to protect hardware IP, the environment is affected by this vulnerability which allows plaintext recovery without cryptographic keys.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Replace or update EDA tool implementations to use properly specified cryptographic padding, disable decryption oracle behavior, and implement authenticated encryption; consider migrating to updated IEEE P1735 revisions if available.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation12.0 h
  • Implementation40.0 h
  • Testing20.0 h
  • Review / QA16.0 h
88.0 hours of engineering $15,480
Get help mitigating

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $24,768.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-13091 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

Get it on GitHub Scan in the browser

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-2017-13091 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