High severity · published Jun 9, 2026
CVE-2026-45447
Heap Use-After-Free in the PKCS7_verify() Function
8.8
CVSS
4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Issue summary: A specially crafted PKCS#7 or S/MIME signed message could trigger a use-after-free during PKCS#7 signature verification. Impact summary: A use-after-free may result in process crashes, heap corruption, or potentially remote code execution. When processing a PKCS#7 or S/MIME signed message, if the SignedData digestAlgorithms field is present as an empty ASN.1 SET, OpenSSL may incorrectly free a caller-owned BIO during PKCS7_verify(). A subsequent use of the BIO by the calling application results in a use-after-free condition. In the common case this occurs when the application later calls BIO_free() on the BIO originally passed to PKCS7_verify(). Depending on allocator behavior and application-specific BIO usage patterns, this may result in a crash or other memory corruption. In some application contexts this may potentially be exploitable for remote code execution. Applications that process PKCS#7 or S/MIME signed messages using OpenSSL PKCS#7 APIs may be affected. Applications using the CMS APIs for this processing are not 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:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)4.0% · higher than 90% 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
CM
Cost Management 4 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
ME
Multicluster Engine for Kubernetes · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.13 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Discovery 2 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extended Lifecycle Support · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA