Critical severity · published Aug 25, 2026
CVE-2026-75803
AEAD Forgeries with Empty Ciphertext When Using EVP_Cipher()
9.1
CVSS
0.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Issue summary: ChaCha20-Poly1305 and AES-OCB decryption with an empty
ciphertext can report success without verifying the supplied authentication
tag when the operation is finalized by calling the EVP_Cipher() function.
Impact summary: Applications calling EVP_Cipher() on an empty ciphertext and
expecting the call to check the AEAD tag may accept forged messages.
CWE: CWE-354 (Improper Validation of Integrity Check Value)
Description: The EVP_Cipher() API call for AEAD ciphers behaves like a one
shot encryption and decryption call. It also verifies the AEAD tag after the
decryption operation. However for AES-OCB and ChaCha20-Poly1305 ciphers
it skipped the AEAD tag verification when an empty ciphertext was passed to
the function. The callers of this function might believe that a successful
return indicates a valid AEAD tag for these ciphers, even when that has not
truly been validated in this case.
FIPS impact: no
The FIPS modules in 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, and 3.0 are not affected by this CVE
as the affected algorithms are not FIPS approved and thus not implemented
in the FIPS module.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.3% · higher than 17% 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; 3.5.0 before 3.5.8; 3.4.0 before 3.4.7; 3.0.0 before 3.0.22 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-75803
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-75803
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/119ab9555dc62275bbd71f6f49529b1a44feba42
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/3621257986e27e540bf96a11570929a6e5a9e05b
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/6c7aa6f8f6449b7fe0137ee8be65fcd239bd7d6a
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/bdeb0cd994d915342787f117ee75044f0dc36f34
Patch
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/bf95f5f772e9362f87b25cfa2f8cb15d984865b9
Vendor Advisory
https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260825.txt
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