CVE-2025-69421
Published: 27 January 2026
Summary
CVE-2025-69421 is a high-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Openssl Openssl. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 31.7th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-11 (Error Handling).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-69421 is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in the OpenSSL cryptographic library, specifically within the PKCS12_item_decrypt_d2i_ex() function. The issue arises when processing a malformed PKCS#12 file, as the function fails to check whether the 'oct' parameter is NULL before dereferencing it; this parameter can be NULL when called from PKCS12_unpack_p7encdata(). Affected versions include OpenSSL 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, 3.0, 1.1.1, and 1.0.2. The FIPS modules in versions 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, and 3.0 are not affected, as the PKCS#12 implementation falls outside the FIPS module boundary. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-476 with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).
An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by supplying a specially crafted malformed PKCS#12 file to any application that processes such files using a vulnerable OpenSSL version. Successful exploitation triggers a crash, resulting in a denial-of-service condition for the affected application. The issue is confined to DoS and cannot be leveraged for code execution or memory disclosure, leading to a low severity assessment under the project's security policy due to the need for an attacker to deliver the malformed file directly.
Mitigation involves applying patches from the OpenSSL repository, as detailed in the following commit references: https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/3524a29271f8191b8fd8a5257eb05173982a097b, https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/36ecb4960872a4ce04bf6f1e1f4e78d75ec0c0c7, https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/4bbc8d41a72c842ce4077a8a3eccd1109aaf74bd, https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/643986985cd1c21221f941129d76fe0c2785aeb3, and https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/a2dbc539f0f9cc63832709fa5aa33ad9495eb19c. Security practitioners should prioritize updating affected OpenSSL deployments that handle PKCS#12 files.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-206393
Vulnerability details
Issue summary: Processing a malformed PKCS#12 file can trigger a NULL pointer dereference in the PKCS12_item_decrypt_d2i_ex() function. Impact summary: A NULL pointer dereference can trigger a crash which leads to Denial of Service for an application processing PKCS#12 files. The…
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PKCS12_item_decrypt_d2i_ex() function does not check whether the oct parameter is NULL before dereferencing it. When called from PKCS12_unpack_p7encdata() with a malformed PKCS#12 file, this parameter can be NULL, causing a crash. The vulnerability is limited to Denial of Service and cannot be escalated to achieve code execution or memory disclosure. Exploiting this issue requires an attacker to provide a malformed PKCS#12 file to an application that processes it. For that reason the issue was assessed as Low severity according to our Security Policy. The FIPS modules in 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue, as the PKCS#12 implementation is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary. OpenSSL 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, 3.0, 1.1.1 and 1.0.2 are vulnerable to this issue.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
NULL pointer dereference in OpenSSL PKCS#12 processing enables direct application crash via crafted file, matching Endpoint DoS via Application or System Exploitation.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Flaw remediation directly mitigates the NULL pointer dereference by applying patches to vulnerable OpenSSL versions handling PKCS#12 files.
Information input validation prevents processing of malformed PKCS#12 files by checking their validity before passing to the OpenSSL PKCS12_item_decrypt_d2i_ex() function.
Error handling ensures the system gracefully manages NULL parameters and exceptions in PKCS#12 processing without crashing or enabling denial-of-service.