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LOW

SSL/TLS: "Invariance Weakness" vulnerability in RC4 stream cipher

Published Apr 1, 2015

Description

The RC4 algorithm, as used in the TLS protocol and SSL protocol, does not properly combine state data with key data during the initialization phase, which makes it easier for remote attackers to conduct plaintext-recovery attacks against the initial bytes of a stream by sniffing network traffic that occasionally relies on keys affected by the Invariance Weakness, and then using a brute-force approach involving LSB values, aka the "Bar Mitzvah" issue.

Affected products

Remediation

Red Hat statement

This flaw is related to the design of the RC4 protocol and not its implementation. Therefore there are no plans to correct this issue in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6 and 7. Future updates may disable the use of RC4 in various components.

Metrics

References (106)

Change history (0)

No recorded changes yet.

Sources
CVE.org / MITRE
Status PUBLISHED
Assigner mitre
Published Apr 1, 2015
Updated May 28, 2026
Reserved Mar 31, 2015
CISA Vulnrichment
Updated May 27, 2026
NVD
Status Modified
Modified Jun 17, 2026
Red Hat
Severity Moderate
Public date Mar 30, 2015