RSA decryption and signature forgery via oracle
Published Jun 9, 2026 · Updated Jun 9, 2026
Covert channel in OpenSSL allows remote attackers to recover RSA plaintext or forge signatures through crafted CMS or S/MIME messages. CMS_decrypt() and PKCS7_decrypt() disable implicit rejection for RSA PKCS#1 v1.5 key transport, exposing padding validity through error codes or decryption output. Exploitation requires control of the encrypted message and observation of the oracle; the OpenSSL project reports no known application that remotely exposes these conditions.
Summary
What happened
Covert channel in OpenSSL allows remote attackers to recover RSA plaintext or forge signatures through crafted CMS or S/MIME messages. CMS_decrypt() and PKCS7_decrypt() disable implicit rejection for RSA PKCS#1 v1.5 key transport, exposing padding validity through error codes or decryption output. Exploitation requires control of the encrypted message and observation of the oracle; the OpenSSL project reports no known application that remotely exposes these conditions.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-42768
- Published
- Jun 9, 2026
- Updated
- Jun 9, 2026
- Vendor
- OpenSSL Project
- Product
- OpenSSL
- Classifications
- CWE-514
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jun 9, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Jun 9, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=3.4.0 <3.4.6
- Affected versionversion=3.5.0 <3.5.7
- Affected versionversion=3.6.0 <3.6.3
- Affected versionversion=4.0.0 <4.0.1
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
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Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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