Medium severity · published Jan 27, 2026
CVE-2026-22796
ASN1_TYPE Type Confusion in the PKCS7_digest_from_attributes() function
5.3
CVSS
0.6%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Issue summary: A type confusion vulnerability exists in the signature verification of signed PKCS#7 data where an ASN1_TYPE union member is accessed without first validating the type, causing an invalid or NULL pointer dereference when processing malformed PKCS#7 data. Impact summary: An application performing signature verification of PKCS#7 data or calling directly the PKCS7_digest_from_attributes() function can be caused to dereference an invalid or NULL pointer when reading, resulting in a Denial of Service. The function PKCS7_digest_from_attributes() accesses the message digest attribute value without validating its type. When the type is not V_ASN1_OCTET_STRING, this results in accessing invalid memory through the ASN1_TYPE union, causing a crash. Exploiting this vulnerability requires an attacker to provide a malformed signed PKCS#7 to an application that verifies it. The impact of the exploit is just a Denial of Service, the PKCS7 API is legacy and applications should be using the CMS API instead. For these reasons the issue was assessed as Low severity. The FIPS modules in 3.5, 3.4, 3.3 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue, as the PKCS#7 parsing implementation is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary. OpenSSL 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, 3.0, 1.1.1 and 1.0.2 are vulnerable to this issue.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.6% · higher than 48% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
OP
OpenSSL · OpenSSL
3.6.0 before 3.6.1; 3.5.0 before 3.5.5; 3.4.0 before 3.4.4; 3.3.0 before 3.3.6; 3.0.0 before 3.0.19; 1.1.1 before 1.1.1ze; +1 more · source: vendor, NVD