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CVE-2016-6489

25
FAUCET Score

CVE-2016-6489 describes a cache side-channel vulnerability in the RSA and DSA decryption code within the Nettle cryptographic library, affecting products from Canonical and Red Hat. This flaw allows attackers to potentially discover private keys by observing cache access patterns during decryption operations. With a CVSS score of 7.5 (High), it represents a significant risk due to its network-based attack vector and low attack complexity, enabling high confidentiality impact without requiring user interaction. Despite its severity, there is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), or significant community discussion or media coverage surrounding this CVE.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
7.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_desktop:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
7.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_hpc_node:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
7.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
7.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_workstation:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
12.04CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:12.04:*:*:*:lts:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.1

7.5HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
NONE
Availability Impact
NONE
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
3.6
CvssVersion
3.1

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
5.01%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
91.3%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-24
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0501 is in the 85th percentile among its peer group of 51,455 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.1 Mastodon, and 0.4 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (1)

redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Fixed in: nettle-0:2.7.1-8.el7
View patch

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2016-6489Moderate

nettle: RSA/DSA code is vulnerable to cache-timing related attacks

Jun 20, 2016

References

rhn.redhat.com / errata/RHSA-2016-2582.html
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
bugzilla.redhat.com / show_bug.cgi
Issue TrackingThird Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
eprint.iacr.org / 2016/596.pdf
Technical Description
git.lysator.liu.se / nettle/nettle/commit/3fe1d6549765ecfb24f0b80b2ed086fdc818bff3
PatchThird Party Advisory
security.gentoo.org / glsa/201706-21
Third Party Advisory
oracle.com / security-alerts/cpuapr2020.html
Third Party Advisory
openwall.com / lists/oss-security/2016/07/29/7
Mailing ListPatchThird Party Advisory
ubuntu.com / usn/USN-3193-1
Third Party Advisory