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OpenSSL CMS AuthEnvelopedData Forged Message Acceptance

IdentifiersCVE-2026-34182CWE-20

OpenSSL CMS processing does not perform sufficient input validation on the cipher selection and tag length fields in AuthEnvelopedData containers. In affected versions, OpenSSL may accept a non-AEAD cipher inside AuthEnvelopedData and proceed with decryption, even though AuthEnvelopedData is intended to use authenticated encryption. One described attack rewrites the inner algorithm identifier from AES-GCM to AES-256-OFB while leaving recipientInfos intact so the victim still unwraps the legitimate CEK, but then decrypts attacker-controlled ciphertext under an unauthenticated stream mode and ignores the MAC field. A second issue allows the authentication tag length for an AEAD cipher to be reduced to a single byte, making brute-force integrity bypass practical against applications that rely on CMS_decrypt() to reject tampered content. The issue affects OpenSSL 4.0.0 before 4.0.1, 3.6.0 before 3.6.3, 3.5.0 before 3.5.7, 3.4.0 before 3.4.6, and 3.0.0 before 3.0.21. The FIPS modules are not affected.

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation can allow forged CMS AuthEnvelopedData messages to be accepted as valid. Depending on application behavior, an attacker may obtain key-equivalent functionality for the content-encryption key associated with a chosen recipient by using decryption success/failure as an oracle. The flaw can also permit integrity validation bypass by shrinking the AEAD tag to one byte and brute-forcing acceptance, causing applications to trust modified content that CMS_decrypt() should have rejected.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If immediate patching is not possible, avoid accepting untrusted CMS AuthEnvelopedData messages, especially where decryption success/failure is externally observable. Where feasible, reject AuthEnvelopedData objects that specify non-AEAD ciphers or anomalously short authentication tags before passing them to OpenSSL CMS decryption routines. Minimize oracle exposure by suppressing distinguishable error handling or response differences tied to CMS decryption outcomes. No general workaround is stated in the provided advisories.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade OpenSSL to a fixed release: 4.0.1, 3.6.3, 3.5.7, 3.4.6, or 3.0.21, as appropriate for the deployed branch. Downstream vendors may also provide backported fixes in distribution-specific packages. Ensure applications using CMS/AuthEnvelopedData are rebuilt or relinked against the corrected OpenSSL version where required.
PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

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VALID 0 / 0 TOTALView more in app

No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

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FreebsdFreebsdapplication

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Associated malware

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Detection signatures

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