CVE-2026-45447
Heap Use-After-Free in the PKCS7_verify() Function
- Published
- Jun 9, 2026
- Updated
- Sep 18, 2026
- Assigning CNA
- openssl
- Evidence observed
- Aug 8, 2026
Primary CVSS
nvd · CVSS 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HLow · next 30 days
- Percentile
- 88.9%
- Model date
- Sep 21, 2026
EPSS is a statistical estimate, not a certainty or a measure of impact. Combine it with CVSS, KEV status, exposure and your environment.
Summary
Issue summary: A specially crafted PKCS#7 or S/MIME signed message could trigger a use-after-free during PKCS#7 signature verification. Impact summary: A use-after-free may result in process crashes, heap corruption, or potentially remote code execution. When processing a PKCS#7 or S/MIME signed message, if the SignedData digestAlgorithms field is present as an empty ASN.1 SET, OpenSSL may incorrectly free a caller-owned BIO during PKCS7_verify(). A subsequent use of the BIO by the calling application results in a use-after-free condition. In the common case this occurs when the application later calls BIO_free() on the BIO originally passed to PKCS7_verify(). Depending on allocator behavior and application-specific BIO usage patterns, this may result in a crash or other memory corruption. In some application contexts this may potentially be exploitable for remote code execution. Applications that process PKCS#7 or S/MIME signed messages using OpenSSL PKCS#7 APIs may be affected. Applications using the CMS APIs for this processing are not 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.
Sources
1- CVE-2026-45447Informational
CVE-2026-45447
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