Low severity · published Jun 9, 2026
CVE-2026-42770
FFC-DH Peer Validation Uses Attacker-Supplied q
3.7
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Issue summary: When EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer() is called with a DHX (X9.42)
peer key, the peer key is not properly checked for the subgroup membership.
Impact summary: A malicious peer which presents an X9.42 key carrying the
victim's p and g parameters, a forged q = r (a small prime factor of the
cofactor (p−1)/q_local), and a public value Y of order r can recover the
victim's private key after a small number of key exchange attempts.
When EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer() is called with a DHX (X9.42) peer key, the
subgroup membership check Y^q ≡ 1 (mod p) is performed using the peer's
own q parameter, not the local key's q. The peer's domain parameters are
then matched against the domain parameters of the private key, but the value
of q is not compared.
A malicious peer who presents an X9.42 key carrying the victim's p, g,
a forged q = r (a small prime factor of the cofactor), and a public
value Y of order r passes all checks. The shared secret then takes only
r distinct values, leaking priv mod r. Repeating for each small-prime
factor of the cofactor and combining via CRT recovers the full private
key (Lim–Lee / small-subgroup-confinement attack).
The realistic attack surface is narrow: principally CMP deployments with
long-lived RA/CA DHX keys and bespoke enterprise or government applications
using X9.42 DHX static keys with interactive protocols and therefore this
issue was assigned Low severity.
The FIPS modules in 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.1.2 and 3.0 are affected by this
issue.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
None
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.5% · higher than 43% 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 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-42770
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-42770
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/3da5a516cd2635a320ff748503db2cef7c4b0f02
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/3ddbb7ab50bd93dfc59cbe08e269a67605aeebdb
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/5f452bba2c681423d8fcffd120a19b757ee42e3c
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/7fbfde7677ed8808828bf00ff01c937ca04bdda2
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/ca2237ab5615641b662183b077f62c08d75e8070
Vendor Advisory
https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260609.txt
More from OpenSSL
7.5
CVE-2014-0160
OpenSSL Information Disclosure Vulnerability
9.8
CVE-2026-63073
Untrusted Sender DN Used as Format String in CMP Response Validation
9.8
CVE-2026-31789
Heap Buffer Overflow in Hexadecimal Conversion
9.8
CVE-2022-2274
RSA implementation bug in AVX512IFMA instructions
9.8
CVE-2021-3711
SM2 Decryption Buffer Overflow
