AEAD Forgeries with Empty Ciphertext When Using EVP_Cipher() (OpenSSL OpenSSL)

CVE-2026-75803
CRITICAL 9.1

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.25 % · percentile 17 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
openssl
NVD status
Analyzed

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.

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-354 — Improper Validation of Integrity Check Value

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.1CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:NCISA-ADP
CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.1CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:NNVD · 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 (Secondary)

European references

CERT-FR advisories

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

Affected products

ProductVersions
OpenSSL · OpenSSLaffected 4.0.0 < 4.0.2 ; affected 3.6.0 < 3.6.4 ; affected 3.5.0 < 3.5.8 ; affected 3.4.0 < 3.4.7 ; affected 3.0.0 < 3.0.22

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
CERT-FR (ANSSI)Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD