VulnerabilityAnalyzed

CVE-2026-75803

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.

CRITICAL 9.1EPSS 0.21%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.21%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

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 3.1: 9.1 CRITICALCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
EPSS: 0.21% probability · 11th percentile
CISA KEV: Not listed
Weakness: CWE-354
Affected: openssl/openssl
Source: openssl-security@openssl.org

References

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.