CVE-2024-41996
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 · uneditedValidating the order of the public keys in the Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement Protocol, when an approved safe prime is used, allows remote attackers (from the client side) to trigger unnecessarily expensive server-side DHE modular-exponentiation calculations. The client may cause asymmetric resource consumption. The basic attack scenario is that the client must claim that it can only communicate with DHE, and the server must be configured to allow DHE and validate the order of the public key.
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 confidenceThis is a denial-of-service vulnerability in Diffie-Hellman (DHE) key exchange where malicious clients can manipulate public key parameters to force servers into performing computationally expensive modular exponentiation operations. The attack exploits the order validation of DH public keys when using approved safe primes, causing asymmetric resource consumption where minimal client effort triggers significant server-side CPU load.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify if DHE cipher suites are enabledReview server SSL/TLS configuration files (e.g., openssl.cnf, nginx.conf, httpd.conf) or run a TLS scan (e.g., nmap --script ssl-enum-ciphers) to list enabled cipher suites and look for DHE variants such as DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA, DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256, or similar DHE- prefixed ciphersAffected if DHE cipher suites are listed as enabled in the server configuration
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Inspect DH parameter validation settingsCheck if the TLS/SSL library or server implementation includes explicit DH public key order validation before proceeding with key exchange. This may be found in library documentation, source code if applicable, or server logs showing validation behaviorAffected if No explicit order validation is performed on incoming DH public keys, or the implementation relies solely on standard DH library defaults without additional checks
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Check for DH key size limitsReview server configuration for any max DH key size setting (e.g., ssl_dhparam in Apache, ssl_prefer_server_ciphers directives, or custom DH parameter limits). Look for configuration options that restrict maximum acceptable DH key sizesAffected if No maximum DH key size limit is configured, allowing arbitrarily large public key parameters to be processed
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Identify TLS library version in useDetermine the version of the TLS library or server software handling Diffie-Hellman key exchanges (e.g., OpenSSL version via 'openssl version', server software version, or library documentation). Compare against any vendor advisories or release notes addressing this vulnerabilityAffected if The TLS library or server software version is older than patches addressing this DoS vulnerability and no compensating controls are in place
A server is affected if it has DHE cipher suites enabled and accepts DH key exchanges without robust order validation or key size limits, allowing a client to trigger disproportionate server-side computational load.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataDisable DHE cipher suites and use ECDHE (Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman) instead, or ensure proper DH parameter validation is implemented to reject invalid public key orders. Alternatively, limit the maximum DH key size accepted.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-41996 — 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 sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2024-41996 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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