CVE-2026-42766

CVE-2026-42766: Possible NULL Dereference in Password-Based CMS Decryption

Vendor Openssl
Product OpenSSL
Weakness CWE-476
Published June 9, 2026
Last update June 10, 2026

CVSS base score

What the vulnerability does

01Description

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.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

June 9, 2026 CVE published
June 10, 2026 Record updated