The implementations of SAE in hostapd before 2.10 and wpa_supplicant before 2.10 are vulnerable to side channel attacks as a result of cache access patterns. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2019-9494.

In FreeRADIUS 3.0 through 3.0.19, on average 1 in every 2048 EAP-pwd handshakes fails because the password element cannot be found within 10 iterations of the hunting and pecking loop. This leaks information that an attacker can use to recover the password of any user. This information leakage is similar to the "Dragonblood" attack and CVE-2019-9494.

The implementations of SAE in hostapd and wpa_supplicant are vulnerable to side channel attacks as a result of observable timing differences and cache access patterns. An attacker may be able to gain leaked information from a side channel attack that can be used for full password recovery. Both hostapd with SAE support and wpa_supplicant with SAE support prior to and including version 2.7 are affected.

The implementations of EAP-PWD in hostapd and wpa_supplicant are vulnerable to side-channel attacks as a result of cache access patterns. All versions of hostapd and wpa_supplicant with EAP-PWD support are vulnerable. The ability to install and execute applications is necessary for a successful attack. Memory access patterns are visible in a shared cache. Weak passwords may be cracked. Versions of hostapd/wpa_supplicant 2.7 and newer, are not vulnerable to the timing attack described in CVE-2019-9494. Both hostapd with EAP-pwd support and wpa_supplicant with EAP-pwd support prior to and including version 2.7 are affected.