GHSA-p52g-cm5j-mjv4 — openssl-src
MEDIUMGHSA-p52g-cm5j-mjv4 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) CWE-203 vulnerability in openssl-src. EPSS puts its 30-day exploitation probability at 16.2% (97th percentile). A fix is available for openssl-src — see the affected versions and patch details below.
openssl-src subject to Timing Oracle in RSA Decryption
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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 GHSA-p52g-cm5j-mjv4.
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
GHSA-p52g-cm5j-mjv4 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 377,166 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
openssl-src🦀openssl-srcReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
A timing based side channel exists in the OpenSSL RSA Decryption implementation which could be sufficient to recover a plaintext across a network in a Bleichenbacher style attack. To achieve a successful decryption an attacker would have to be able to send a very large number of trial messages for decryption. The vulnerability affects all RSA padding modes: PKCS#1 v1.5, RSA-OEAP and RSASVE.
For example, in a TLS connection, RSA is commonly used by a client to send an encrypted pre-master secret to the server. An attacker that had observed a genuine connection between a client and a server could use this flaw to send trial messages to the server and record the time taken to process them. After a sufficiently large number of messages the attacker could recover the pre-master secret used for the original connection and thus be able to decrypt the application data sent over that connection.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | openssl-src | all versions | 111.25.0cargo update -p openssl-src --precise 111.25.0 |
| 🦀crates.io | openssl-src | ≥ 300.0.0&&< 300.0.12 | 300.0.12cargo update -p openssl-src --precise 300.0.12 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for openssl-src, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update openssl-src to 111.25.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-p52g-cm5j-mjv4 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 GHSA-p52g-cm5j-mjv4 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-p52g-cm5j-mjv4. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| JBCS httpd 2.4.51.sp2 | openssl | RHSA-2023:3355 |
| JBoss Core Services for RHEL 8 | jbcs-httpd24-openssl-1:1.1.1k-14.el8jbcs | RHSA-2023:3354 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | edk2-0:20220126gitbb1bba3d77-4.el8 | RHSA-2023:2932 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | openssl-1:1.1.1k-9.el8_7 | RHSA-2023:1405 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Extended Update Support | edk2-0:20220126gitbb1bba3d77-2.el8_6.1 | RHSA-2023:4128 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Extended Update Support | openssl-1:1.1.1k-9.el8_6 | RHSA-2023:3408 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | openssl-1:3.0.1-47.el9_1 | RHSA-2023:0946 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | edk2-0:20221207gitfff6d81270b5-9.el9_2 | RHSA-2023:2165 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-p52g-cm5j-mjv4 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-p52g-cm5j-mjv4 across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.