Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-22796

Openssl 1.0.2 – 1.0.2zn

Published
27 January 2026
Modified
12 May 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0050 40th percentile
Risk Priority 45 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-22796 is a medium-severity Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions (CWE-754) vulnerability in Openssl Openssl. Its CVSS base score is 5.3 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Service Stop (T1489); ranked at the 40th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Issue summary: A type confusion vulnerability exists in the signature verification of signed PKCS#7 data where an ASN1_TYPE union member is accessed without first validating the type, causing an invalid or NULL pointer dereference when processing malformed PKCS#7 data. Impact…

more

summary: An application performing signature verification of PKCS#7 data or calling directly the PKCS7_digest_from_attributes() function can be caused to dereference an invalid or NULL pointer when reading, resulting in a Denial of Service. The function PKCS7_digest_from_attributes() accesses the message digest attribute value without validating its type. When the type is not V_ASN1_OCTET_STRING, this results in accessing invalid memory through the ASN1_TYPE union, causing a crash. Exploiting this vulnerability requires an attacker to provide a malformed signed PKCS#7 to an application that verifies it. The impact of the exploit is just a Denial of Service, the PKCS7 API is legacy and applications should be using the CMS API instead. For these reasons the issue was assessed as Low severity. The FIPS modules in 3.5, 3.4, 3.3 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue, as the PKCS#7 parsing 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 Techniques

T1489 Service Stop Impact
Adversaries may stop or disable services on a system to render those services unavailable to legitimate users.
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-69420Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-31790Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-22795Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2023-5678Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-42765Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-28389Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-28388Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-42767Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-42766Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2025-69421Same product: Openssl Openssl

Affected Assets

openssl
openssl
1.0.2 — 1.0.2zn · 1.1.1 — 1.1.1ze · 3.0.0 — 3.0.19

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 7 hardening rules · 2 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation explicitly exercises unusual conditions to find missing or incorrect checks.

Input validation directly requires checking for unexpected or malformed conditions before they propagate.

Security engineering principles include structured handling of edge cases and exceptions during design.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure development practices directly require proper checks and handling for exceptional conditions throughout the SDLC.

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Runtime monitoring of software and environments can detect adverse events triggered by unhandled exceptional conditions.

PR.PS-04 partial match
prevents

Generating logs of exceptions and errors enables detection of improper handling of unusual conditions.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Security testing in development and acceptance verifies handling of error and exceptional conditions.

A.8.15 Logging partial match
finds

Logging can record unhandled exceptions but does not prevent the weakness itself.

finds

Monitoring may detect symptoms of unhandled conditions but does not eliminate the root weakness.

prevents

Secure development life cycle mandates exception handling and input validation that directly prevent missing checks for unusual conditions.

prevents

Application security requirements explicitly call for handling of exceptional conditions and error paths.

prevents

Secure system architecture and engineering principles require robust error and exception handling mechanisms.

Hardening callouts derived

Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).

Oracle Linux 8 (2 rules)
  • V-248574 YUM must be configured to prevent the installation of patches, service packs, device drivers, or OL 8 system components that have not been digitally signed using a certificate that is recognized and approved by the organization. prevents CWE-754
  • V-248575 OL 8 must prevent the installation of software, patches, service packs, device drivers, or operating system components of local packages without verification they have been digitally signed using a certificate that is issued by a Certificate Authority (CA) that is recognized and approved by the organization. prevents CWE-754
Oracle Linux 9 (1 rule)
  • V-271452 OL 9 must use a Linux Security Module configured to enforce limits on system services. prevents CWE-754

References