CVE-2026-45446

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

4.8
Medium

Description

Issue summary: The implementations of AES-SIV (RFC 5297) and AES-GCM-SIV (RFC 8452) mishandle the authentication of AAD (Additional Authenticated Data) with an empty ciphertext allowing a forgery of such messages. Impact summary: An attacker can forge empty messages with arbitrary AAD to the victim's application using these ciphers. AES-SIV (RFC 5297) and AES-GCM-SIV (RFC 8452) are nonce-misuse-resistant AEAD modes: they accept a key, nonce, optional AAD (bytes that are authenticated but not encrypted), and plaintext, and produces ciphertext plus a 16-byte tag. On decrypt, `EVP_DecryptFinal_ex()` is documented to return success only if the tag is verified succesfully. In OpenSSL's provider implementation of these ciphers, the expected tag is computed only when decryption function is invoked with non-empty data. If the caller supplies AAD and then calls `EVP_DecryptFinal_ex()` without invocation of the ciphertext update, which can happen when the received ciphertext length is zero, the tag is never recalculated and still holds its all-zeros value. When AES-GCM-SIV is used, an attacker who sends arbitrary AAD, empty ciphertext, and all-zeros tag passes authentication under any key they do not know, single-shot. When AES-SIV is used, for mounting the attack it's necessary for the application to reuse the decryption context without resetting the key. AES-SIV is implemented since OpenSSL 3.0. AES-GCM-SIV is implemented since OpenSSL 3.2. No protocols implemented in OpenSSL itself (TLS/CMS/PKCS7/HPKE/QUIC) support either AES-GCM-SIV or AES-SIV. To mount an attack, the applications must implement their own protocol and use the EVP interface. Also they must skip the ciphertext update when a message with an empty ciphertext arrives. The FIPS modules in 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, and 3.0 are not affected by this issue, as these algorithms are not FIPS approved and the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.

Product(s) Impacted

Vendor Product Versions
Openssl
  • Openssl
  • 3.0, 3.2

Weaknesses

Common security weaknesses mapped to this vulnerability.

CWE-325
Missing Cryptographic Step
The product does not implement a required step in a cryptographic algorithm, resulting in weaker encryption than advertised by the algorithm.

CVSS Score

4.8 / 10

CVSS Data - 3.1

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

    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.