CVE-2024-1631 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.1) CWE-321 vulnerability in @dfinity/identity. A fix is available for @dfinity/identity — see the affected versions and patch details below.
agent-js: Insecure Key Generation in `Ed25519KeyIdentity.generate`
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-1631.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-1631 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,333 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, a proxy for how much of the ecosystem is exposed.
@dfinity/identitynpm@dfinity/auth-clientnpmDescription
Impact
The library offers a function to generate an ed25519 key pair via Ed25519KeyIdentity.generate with an optional param to provide a 32 byte seed value, which will then be used as the secret key. When no seed value is provided, it is expected that the library generates the secret key using secure randomness. However, a recent change broke this guarantee and uses an insecure seed for key pair generation.
Since the private key of this identity (535yc-uxytb-gfk7h-tny7p-vjkoe-i4krp-3qmcl-uqfgr-cpgej-yqtjq-rqe) is compromised, one could lose funds associated with the principal on ledgers or lose access to a canister where this principal is the controller. Users are asked to take proactive measures mentioned below in Workarounds:Users to protect their assets.
Patches
Patch for the vulnerability is available in v1.0.1 for all the packages listed in the advisory. Please upgrade and deploy your canisters immediately.
Workarounds
Developers
The recommended fix is to upgrade the package to the patched version. If that is not possible, there are couple of workarounds to handle the insecure key generation.
- Invoking the function as
Ed25519KeyIdentity.generate(null)would fix the broken conditional evaluation and force the function to generate a securely random seed. However, this is not guaranteed to work for future upgrades. - Passing a securely generated randomness as a seed to
Ed25519KeyIdentity.generatewould force the library to use it as the seed to generate the key pair.
Users
Removing a controller of a canister if it's the affected principal
For all canisters you control, fetch the controllers of the canisters using
dfx canister info --ic <CANISTER>
If you see the principal 535yc-uxytb-gfk7h-tny7p-vjkoe-i4krp-3qmcl-uqfgr-cpgej-yqtjq-rqe as one of the controllers, follow the steps below
dfx identity whoami # record CURRENT_IDENTITY
dfx identity new <NEW_IDENTITY_NAME>
dfx identity use <NEW_IDENTITY_NAME>
dfx identity get-principal <NEW_IDENTITY_NAME> # record NEW_IDENTITY_PRINCIPAL
dfx identity use <CURRENT_IDENTITY>
dfx canister update-settings --ic <CANISTER> --add-controller <NEW_IDENTITY_PRINCIPAL>
dfx canister update-settings --ic <CANISTER> --remove-controller `535yc-uxytb-gfk7h-tny7p-vjkoe-i4krp-3qmcl-uqfgr-cpgej-yqtjq-rqe`
For more details on canister management, please visit here
Checking funds on wallets / ledgers
If you have funds on ledgers using a browser wallet, please check if the account principal matches 535yc-uxytb-gfk7h-tny7p-vjkoe-i4krp-3qmcl-uqfgr-cpgej-yqtjq-rqe. If it does, please create a new account and transfer the funds to the new account immediately.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | @dfinity/identity | ≥ 0.20.0-beta.0&&< 1.0.1 | 1.0.1npm install @dfinity/identity@1.0.1 |
| 📦npm | @dfinity/auth-client | ≥ 0.20.0-beta.0&&< 1.0.1 | 1.0.1npm install @dfinity/auth-client@1.0.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for @dfinity/identity, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update @dfinity/identity to 1.0.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-1631 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-1631 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-1631. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-1631 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-1631 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.