Possible NULL Dereference in Password-Based CMS Decryption_CVE-2026-42766

5.9 / 10

MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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.

Basic Information

ID CVE-2026-42766

Source openssl

Published Jun 9, 2026 at 16:03

Modified Jun 9, 2026 at 19:46

Affected Product

Vendor OpenSSL

Product OpenSSL

Version 4.0.0

Affected Versions OpenSSL OpenSSL 4.0.0
OpenSSL OpenSSL 3.6.0
OpenSSL OpenSSL 3.5.0
OpenSSL OpenSSL 3.4.0
OpenSSL OpenSSL 3.0.0
OpenSSL OpenSSL 1.1.1
OpenSSL OpenSSL 1.0.2

CWE Classification

CWE-476

References

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    "published": "2026-06-09T16:03:26.679Z",
    "modified": "2026-06-09T19:46:27.585Z",
    "type": "cve",
    "title": "Possible NULL Dereference in Password-Based CMS Decryption",
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    "references": "https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260609.txt\nhttps://github.com/openssl/security/commit/12bc26ffb3a2be728c9b86e1cae277de5b33dfa4\nhttps://github.com/openssl/security/commit/da26f368732b83e40e9d356fe61c3d3aaab6d2e8\nhttps://github.com/openssl/security/commit/056d06c1918fafbb98c1c85a02e4c47cc4e199ce\nhttps://github.com/openssl/security/commit/ab52d88cb5374876d59aee3c91f9e4ccce2b7ce4\nhttps://github.com/openssl/security/commit/3ff64913615d648cfbb6a6f1cf5529ae7ea829d7",
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