8.7
HIGH CVSS 4.0
CVE-2026-22698
RustCrypto SM2-PKE has 32-bit Biased Nonce Vulnerability
Description

RustCrypto: Elliptic Curves is general purpose Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) support, including types and traits for representing various elliptic curve forms, scalars, points, and public/secret keys composed thereof. In versions 0.14.0-pre.0 and 0.14.0-rc.0, a critical vulnerability exists in the SM2 Public Key Encryption (PKE) implementation where the ephemeral nonce k is generated with severely reduced entropy. A unit mismatch error causes the nonce generation function to request only 32 bits of randomness instead of the expected 256 bits. This reduces the security of the encryption from a 128-bit level to a trivial 16-bit level, allowing a practical attack to recover the nonce k and decrypt any ciphertext given only the public key and ciphertext. This issue has been patched via commit e4f7778.

INFO

Published Date :

Jan. 10, 2026, 6:15 a.m.

Last Modified :

Jan. 10, 2026, 6:15 a.m.

Remotely Exploit :

Yes !
Affected Products

The following products are affected by CVE-2026-22698 vulnerability. Even if cvefeed.io is aware of the exact versions of the products that are affected, the information is not represented in the table below.

No affected product recoded yet

CVSS Scores
The Common Vulnerability Scoring System is a standardized framework for assessing the severity of vulnerabilities in software and systems. We collect and displays CVSS scores from various sources for each CVE.
Score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Score Impact Score Source
CVSS 4.0 HIGH [email protected]
Solution
Update to a version of RustCrypto Elliptic Curves that addresses the SM2 PKE nonce generation vulnerability.
  • Update RustCrypto Elliptic Curves to a patched version.
  • Ensure SM2 PKE uses 256 bits for nonce generation.
CWE - Common Weakness Enumeration

While CVE identifies specific instances of vulnerabilities, CWE categorizes the common flaws or weaknesses that can lead to vulnerabilities. CVE-2026-22698 is associated with the following CWEs:

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC) stores attack patterns, which are descriptions of the common attributes and approaches employed by adversaries to exploit the CVE-2026-22698 weaknesses.

We scan GitHub repositories to detect new proof-of-concept exploits. Following list is a collection of public exploits and proof-of-concepts, which have been published on GitHub (sorted by the most recently updated).

Results are limited to the first 15 repositories due to potential performance issues.

The following list is the news that have been mention CVE-2026-22698 vulnerability anywhere in the article.

The following table lists the changes that have been made to the CVE-2026-22698 vulnerability over time.

Vulnerability history details can be useful for understanding the evolution of a vulnerability, and for identifying the most recent changes that may impact the vulnerability's severity, exploitability, or other characteristics.

  • New CVE Received by [email protected]

    Jan. 10, 2026

    Action Type Old Value New Value
    Added Description RustCrypto: Elliptic Curves is general purpose Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) support, including types and traits for representing various elliptic curve forms, scalars, points, and public/secret keys composed thereof. In versions 0.14.0-pre.0 and 0.14.0-rc.0, a critical vulnerability exists in the SM2 Public Key Encryption (PKE) implementation where the ephemeral nonce k is generated with severely reduced entropy. A unit mismatch error causes the nonce generation function to request only 32 bits of randomness instead of the expected 256 bits. This reduces the security of the encryption from a 128-bit level to a trivial 16-bit level, allowing a practical attack to recover the nonce k and decrypt any ciphertext given only the public key and ciphertext. This issue has been patched via commit e4f7778.
    Added CVSS V4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
    Added CWE CWE-331
    Added Reference https://crates.io/crates/sm2/0.14.0-pre.0
    Added Reference https://crates.io/crates/sm2/0.14.0-rc.0
    Added Reference https://github.com/RustCrypto/elliptic-curves/commit/4781762f23ff22ab34763410f648128055c93731
    Added Reference https://github.com/RustCrypto/elliptic-curves/commit/e4f77788130d065d760e57fb109370827110a525
    Added Reference https://github.com/RustCrypto/elliptic-curves/pull/1600
    Added Reference https://github.com/RustCrypto/elliptic-curves/security/advisories/GHSA-w3g8-fp6j-wvqw
EPSS is a daily estimate of the probability of exploitation activity being observed over the next 30 days. Following chart shows the EPSS score history of the vulnerability.
Vulnerability Scoring Details
Base CVSS Score: 8.7
Attack Vector
Attack Complexity
Attack Requirements
Privileges Required
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