Vulnerability in Openssl (CVE-2026-45446)
Summary
Vulnerability in Openssl (CVE-2026-45446). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
Issue summary: The implementations of AES-SIV (RFC 5297) and AES-GCM-SIV
(RFC 8452) mishandle the authentication of AAD (Additional Authenticated
Data) with an empty ciphertext allowing a forgery of such messages.
Impact summary: An attacker can forge empty messages with arbitrary AAD
to the victim's application using these ciphers.
AES-SIV (RFC 5297) and AES-GCM-SIV (RFC 8452) are nonce-misuse-resistant AEAD
modes: they accept a key, nonce, optional AAD (bytes that are authenticated
but not encrypted), and plaintext, and produces ciphertext plus a 16-byte
tag. On decrypt, EVP_DecryptFinal_ex() is documented to return success only
if the tag is verified succesfully.
In OpenSSL's provider implementation of these ciphers, the expected tag is
computed only when decryption function is invoked with non-empty data.
If the caller supplies AAD and then calls EVP_DecryptFinal_ex() without
invocation of the ciphertext update, which can happen when the received
ciphertext length is zero, the tag is never recalculated and still holds its
all-zeros value.
When AES-GCM-SIV is used, an attacker who sends arbitrary AAD, empty
ciphertext, and all-zeros tag passes authentication under any key they do not
know, single-shot. When AES-SIV is used, for mounting the attack it's
necessary for the application to reuse the decryption context without
resetting the key.
AES-SIV is implemented since OpenSSL 3.0. AES-GCM-SIV is implemented since
OpenSSL 3.2.
No protocols implemented in OpenSSL i…
Source: GitHub Security Advisories (Global) NVD GitHub Advisory
Auto-generated summary
Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.
A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-45446 has been found in Openssl.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. CVSS score: 4.8/10.
What to do: apply the vendor's official patched release.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Openssl CVE-2026-45446" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2026-45446 (Openssl) — CWE-325 / CVSS v3 4.8
Attack vector: remote (network-reachable) / unauthenticated / no user interaction
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.
A vulnerability (CWE-325) exists in Openssl.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Openssl.
Severity: Medium (CVSS 4.8/10). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Update to the patched release per vendor advisory.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'Openssl' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
-
1Identify exposure identify
grep -r 'Openssl' . | grep -v node_modulesリポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で
Opensslを grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。 -
2Post-deployment verification verify
Confirm patched version is live in productionパッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。
Fix status by distribution
Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE
- Alpine Linux ALPINE-CVE-2026-45446 openssl Fixed in: 3.5.7-r0
- BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2026-45446 openssl Fixed in: 3.5.7-r0
- Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2026-45446 openssl
- Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2026-45446 openssl Fixed in: 3.0.2-0ubuntu1.25
References
- patch openssl-security@openssl.org
- patch openssl-security@openssl.org
- patch openssl-security@openssl.org
- patch openssl-security@openssl.org
- patch openssl-security@openssl.org
- patch openssl-security@openssl.org
- web nvd.nist.gov
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com