Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-50722

Libreswan ≤ 5.3.1

Published
02 July 2026
Modified
09 July 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 8.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0035 27th percentile
Risk Priority 59 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-50722 is a high-severity Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature (CWE-347) vulnerability in Libreswan Libreswan. Its CVSS base score is 8.1 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Supply Chain Compromise (T1195); ranked at the 27th 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 SC-13 (Cryptographic Protection) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Libreswan, via the function RSA_authenticate_hash_signature_pkcs1_1_5_rsa(), did not correctly verify the DER encoding of the ASN.1 digest when the IKEv2 AUTH payload was encoded using RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 (RFC 8017). A remote attacker can use a variation on the Bleichenbacher attack to forge…

more

the AUTH payload when small public exponents are used (e.g., e=3), leading to impersonation. Additionally, a remote attacker, by encoding a shorter than expected hash in the AUTH payload, could trigger an assertion leading to denial-of-service. The daemon aborts and restarts; continued exploitation causes sustained denial of service. Remote code execution is not possible. X.509 certificate verifications of the remote IKE peer are not affected.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1195 Supply Chain Compromise Initial Access
Adversaries may manipulate products or product delivery mechanisms prior to receipt by a final consumer for the purpose of data or system compromise.
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.
T1195.002 Compromise Software Supply Chain Initial Access
Adversaries may manipulate application software prior to receipt by a final consumer for the purpose of data or system compromise.
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.
T1542 Pre-OS Boot Stealth
Adversaries may abuse Pre-OS Boot mechanisms as a way to establish persistence on a system.
T1553 Subvert Trust Controls Defense Impairment
Adversaries may undermine security controls that will either warn users of untrusted activity or prevent execution of untrusted programs.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-50721Same product: Libreswan Libreswan
CVE-2026-12413Same product: Libreswan Libreswan
CVE-2023-38712Same product: Libreswan Libreswan
CVE-2023-38711Same product: Libreswan Libreswan
CVE-2023-30570Same product: Libreswan Libreswan
CVE-2024-3652Same product: Libreswan Libreswan
CVE-2023-38710Same product: Libreswan Libreswan
CVE-2023-23009Same product: Libreswan Libreswan
CVE-2023-2295Same product: Libreswan Libreswan
CVE-2026-5050Shared CWE-347

Affected Assets

libreswan
libreswan
≤ 5.3.1

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 14 hardening rules · 5 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation finds reachable assertions during development.

Requiring cryptographic protection mechanisms forces correct signature verification to be implemented for data protection.

Mandating integrity verification tools directly requires proper cryptographic signature checking to detect unauthorized changes.

Security engineering principles discourage use of assertions for handling untrusted input.

Protecting session authenticity requires correct verification of cryptographic signatures or equivalent mechanisms.

Validating untrusted inputs structurally prevents attacker data from reaching and triggering assertions.

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.DS-01 mostly match
prevents

Digital signatures are explicitly cited to protect integrity of data-at-rest, so proper verification directly mitigates the weakness.

PR.DS-02 mostly match
prevents

Digital signatures are explicitly cited to protect integrity of data-in-transit, so proper verification directly mitigates the weakness.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent unsafe assertions from being coded in reachable paths.

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Runtime monitoring of software can detect assertion-triggered crashes as adverse events.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability identification processes can discover and record reachable-assertion flaws before deployment.

ID.RA-09 partial match
prevents

Requires assessing authenticity and integrity of acquired assets, which commonly relies on signature verification but is limited to pre-acquisition.

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 can detect reachable assertions before release, reducing the likelihood of exploitation.

prevents

Establishing approved cryptographic solutions and usage practices lowers the probability that signature-verification steps will be omitted or incorrectly implemented.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates defensive coding and input validation that prevent reachable assertions from being triggered by untrusted data.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify that assertions must not be reachable from attacker-controlled inputs.

prevents

Secure architecture principles discourage the use of assertions for runtime error handling that an attacker could exploit.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly ban the use of assert() or equivalent statements that can be triggered by external input.

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-347
  • 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-347
Oracle Linux 9 (2 rules)
  • V-271525 OL 9 must have GPG signature verification enabled for all software repositories. prevents CWE-347
  • V-271523 OL 9 must check the GPG signature of locally installed software packages before installation. prevents CWE-347
RHEL 7 (2 rules)
  • V-204447 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must prevent the installation of software, patches, service packs, device drivers, or operating system components from a repository 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-347
  • V-204448 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system 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-347
RHEL 8 (1 rule)
  • V-230264 RHEL 8 must prevent the installation of software, patches, service packs, device drivers, or operating system components from a repository 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-347
RHEL 9 (1 rule)
  • V-257822 RHEL 9 must have GPG signature verification enabled for all software repositories. prevents CWE-347

References