CVE-2026-42765

June 10, 2026, 8:16 a.m.

7.5
High

Description

Issue summary: When a partial-chain certificate verification is enabled together with OCSP response checking for the whole chain, a NULL dereference will happen if the verified chain does not have a self-signed trusted anchor, crashing the process. Impact summary: A NULL pointer dereference can trigger a crash which leads to a Denial of Service for an application. When performing OCSP response checking for certificates in the verification chain, the code always tries to access the next certificate as the issuer. There is a check for a self-signed certificate. However with the partial chain verification enabled when the chain does not have a self-signed trusted anchor, the issuer will be NULL for the last certificate in the chain. A NULL pointer dereference then happens. This issue affects only applications which enable both OCSP verification of the certificate chain (X509_V_FLAG_OCSP_RESP_CHECK_ALL) and partial chain verification (X509_V_FLAG_PARTIAL_CHAIN) in the certificate verification. Both flags are disabled by default. For that reason, we have assigned Low severity to the issue. No FIPS modules are affected by this issue as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.

Product(s) Impacted

Vendor Product Versions
Openssl
  • Openssl
  • *

Weaknesses

Common security weaknesses mapped to this vulnerability.

CWE-476
NULL Pointer Dereference
A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit.

*CPE(s)

Affected systems and software identified for this CVE.

Type Vendor Product Version Update Edition Language Software Edition Target Software Target Hardware Other Information
a openssl openssl / / / / / / / /

CVSS Score

7.5 / 10

CVSS Data - 3.1

  • Attack Vector: NETWORK
  • Attack Complexity: LOW
  • Privileges Required: NONE
  • Scope: UNCHANGED
  • Confidentiality Impact: NONE
  • Integrity Impact: NONE
  • Availability Impact: HIGH
  • CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

    View Vector String

Timeline

Published: June 9, 2026, 5:17 p.m.
Last Modified: June 10, 2026, 8:16 a.m.

Status : Awaiting Analysis

CVE has been recently published to the CVE List and has been received by the NVD.

More info

*Disclaimer: Some vulnerabilities do not have an associated CPE. To enhance the data, we use AI to infer CPEs based on CVE details. This is an automated process and might not always be accurate.