High severity · published Aug 5, 2026
CVE-2026-54876
Client-Side Memory Leak in OCSP Response Checking
7.5
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Issue summary: A malicious TLS server can cause a memory leak in a TLS
client that has enabled OCSP response checking by sending an OCSP
response that contains no single response entries.
Impact summary: An attacker can leak an attacker-tunable amount of memory
per TLS handshake in a victim client application. A long-running client
that repeatedly connects to a malicious server can have its memory
exhausted, resulting in a Denial of Service.
CWE: CWE-401: Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
Description: The affected function is called during X.509 certificate
chain verification when OCSP response checking is enabled
with the X509_V_FLAG_OCSP_RESP_CHECK or X509_V_FLAG_OCSP_RESP_CHECK_ALL
verification flags, for example when a TLS client verifies an OCSP
response stapled into the TLS handshake by the server.
When the received BasicOCSPResponse contains an empty SEQUENCE OF
SingleResponse, which is permitted on the wire and accepted by the
OpenSSL decoder, the OCSP_BASICRESP structure allocated by
OCSP_response_get1_basic() was not freed because an early return
bypassed the cleanup code at the end of the function.
The amount of memory leaked per handshake can be amplified by the
attacker by padding the certs field of the BasicOCSPResponse with
bogus certificates, which are parsed and stored in the leaked
structure before the empty response check triggers the early return.
A long-running TLS client that repeatedly connects to a malicious
server can have its memory exhausted over time.
OCSP response checking is not enabled by default. Only client
applications that explicitly enable the OCSP response check
verification flags are affected.
FIPS impact: no
The FIPS modules in 4.0 and 3.6 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:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.5% · higher than 44% 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 4.0.2; 3.6.0 before 3.6.4 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-54876
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-54876
github.com
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/155b5fe0f93365e6df1c56ee3606b121080c6c12
github.com
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/d8c51048ac037a21bae0f41cad7a3920dc7f3638
openssl-library.org
https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260805.txt
www.openwall.com
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/08/05/8
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