CVE DATABASE / CVE-2002-20001
CVE-2002-20001
Summary
The Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement Protocol allows remote attackers (from the client side) to send arbitrary numbers that are actually not public keys, and trigger expensive server-side DHE modular-exponentiation calculations, aka a D(HE)at or D(HE)ater attack. The client needs very little CPU resources and network bandwidth. The attack may be more disruptive in cases where a client can require a server to select its largest supported key size. 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.
CVSS 3.1 breakdown
| Base score | 7.5 (HIGH) |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| Attack vector | NETWORK |
| Attack complexity | LOW |
| Privileges required | NONE |
| User interaction | NONE |
| Scope | UNCHANGED |
| Confidentiality | NONE |
| Integrity | NONE |
| Availability | HIGH |
Weakness type (CWE)
Affected products
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References
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/pdf/ssa-506569.pdf
- https://dheatattack.com
- https://dheatattack.gitlab.io/
- https://github.com/Balasys/dheater
- https://github.com/mozilla/ssl-config-generator/issues/162
- https://gitlab.com/dheatattack/dheater
- https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10374117
- https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K83120834
- https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/alert/ARUBA-PSA-2022-004.txt
- https://www.openssl.org/blog/blog/2022/10/21/tls-groups-configuration/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/qdoosy/server_overload_by_enforcing_dhe_key_exchange/
- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anton-Stiglic-2/publication/2401745_Security_Issues_in_the_Diffie-Hellman_Key_Agreement_Protocol
- https://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc/?id=000020510
Data: NIST NVD. NVD last modified 2025-08-22. Always verify against the vendor advisory before acting.