Medium severity · published Jun 9, 2026
CVE-2026-42766
Possible NULL Dereference in Password-Based CMS Decryption
5.9
CVSS
1.1%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Issue summary: A specially crafted password-encrypted CMS message
can trigger a NULL pointer dereference during CMS decryption.
Impact summary: This NULL pointer dereference leads to an application crash
and a Denial of Service.
The CMS PasswordRecipientInfo.keyDerivationAlgorithm field is defined as
OPTIONAL in the ASN.1 specification and may therefore be absent in specially
crafted inputs. During the password-based CMS decryption the OpenSSL
CMS implementation dereferences this field without first checking whether it
was present.
An attacker who supplies such a CMS message to an application performing
password-based CMS decryption can trigger an application crash, leading to
a Denial of Service.
Applications that process password-encrypted CMS messages may be affected.
The FIPS modules in 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, and 3.0 are not affected by this
issue, as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)1.1% · higher than 64% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
OP
OpenSSL · OpenSSL
4.0.0 before 4.0.1; 3.6.0 before 3.6.3; 3.5.0 before 3.5.7; 3.4.0 before 3.4.6; 3.0.0 before 3.0.21; 1.1.1 before 1.1.1zh; +1 more · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-42766
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-42766
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/056d06c1918fafbb98c1c85a02e4c47cc4e199ce
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/12bc26ffb3a2be728c9b86e1cae277de5b33dfa4
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/3ff64913615d648cfbb6a6f1cf5529ae7ea829d7
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/ab52d88cb5374876d59aee3c91f9e4ccce2b7ce4
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/da26f368732b83e40e9d356fe61c3d3aaab6d2e8
Vendor Advisory
https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260609.txt
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