CVE-2026-54873
UnknownSummary
A vulnerability in the QUIC implementation in OpenSSL allows a remote attacker to keep allocated packet buffer memory for an extended period by sending specially crafted packets. The issue stems from missing resource allocation limits (CWE-770), potentially leading to excessive memory consumption.
Risk Assessment
The organization is exposed to a denial-of-service (DoS) attack via memory exhaustion on servers or clients using QUIC. The attacker can control how long memory is retained, enabling prolonged system load without sending large amounts of data.
Recommendation
Immediately update OpenSSL to a version containing the fix that monitors memory overhead per stream and moves stream data to the stream buffer after exceeding the 64kB threshold. Also consider restricting QUIC services to trusted clients only.
Other vulnerabilities in OpenSSL
See all- CVE-2026-84784High
A malicious remote peer can flood the local QUIC stack with NEW_CONNECTION_ID frames by bypassing a limit on connection IDs. This causes RETIRE_CONN_ID frames to be sent and, with withheld ACKs, can allocate about 400 MB of memory.
- CVE-2026-84783High
OpenSSL 4.0 contains a use-after-free vulnerability (CWE-416) in the caching of X.509 certificate extensions. When several threads concurrently use the same certificate for the first time, one thread may free the cached extension data while another thread is still using it. This can crash the process, resulting in a Denial of Service.
- CVE-2026-84782High
The DTLS retransmission logic incorrectly handles a handshake message write that is suspended part-way through. The retransmitted message can be read past the message buffer, disclosing heap memory or causing a crash and Denial of Service.
- CVE-2026-77696Low
SM2 signature generation uses non-constant-time arithmetic on secret values, forming a timing side-channel. An attacker able to measure SM2 signing times may learn information about the per-signature secret nonce, which over many signatures can lead to recovery of the private key. Applications performing SM2 signature generation are affected on all platforms.
- CVE-2026-75806Medium
An established DTLS 1.2 association using an AEAD cipher suite can be terminated by a single unauthenticated datagram whose encrypted fragment is shorter than the mandatory explicit IV and authentication tag overhead. The record layer passes the record length to the cipher before checking it is long enough, causing an internal error instead of treating the record as failed authentication.
- CVE-2026-75805Medium
A NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in the OpenSSL CMP client. When a client requests certificate revocation based on a PKCS#10 CSR and the server returns a specially crafted certificate name in its response, the client reads from a NULL pointer and crashes. Only clients that identify the certificate via CSR (e.g. 'openssl cmp -cmd rr -csr' or OSSL_CMP_exec_RR_ses() with OSSL_CMP_CTX_set1_p10CSR()) are affected.
- CVE-2026-75804Medium
The OpenSSL QUIC stack does not enforce connection-level flow control for streams. A malicious remote peer can send more bytes as long as they fit within stream flow control limits, leading to excessive memory allocation.
- CVE-2026-72897High
A TLS server that calls SSL_set_SSL_CTX() to switch a connection to a different SSL_CTX part way through a handshake may access memory beyond the end of an internal array if the replacement context knows about more provider signature algorithms than the context the connection was created from. A remote peer may be able to cause a small out-of-bounds read, and in some circumstances a fixed-value out-of-bounds write, on the server heap, potentially leading to a Denial of Service.
- CVE-2026-54875Low
OpenSSL's optimized scalar point multiplication implementation for SM2 private key operations on ARM64 and RISC-V platforms is not constant-time. Conditional branches and table lookups depend on the bits of the secret scalar, so execution time and cache-access patterns leak information about the private key or signature nonce.
- CVE-2026-54872Low
The generic elliptic-curve scalar multiplication used for ECDSA and SM2 signature operations with curves lacking a dedicated implementation leaks information about the secret nonce through timing. An attacker measuring signing times may learn the nonce, which over many signatures can lead to private key recovery.
Original NVD description (English source)
Issue summary: QUIC process may keep memory for QUIC packet buffer for much longer period than necessary. Impact summary: Remote peer can exploit this vulnerability by sending maliciously crafted packets, making the local QUIC stack to keep the memory for packet buffers allocated. The time for which the memory remains allocated is entirely under the control of the potentially malicious remote peer. CWE: CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling Description: To save copy operation from the packet buffer to the stream reassemble buffer the QUIC stack leaves the stream data on the packet buffer waiting to be copied to a buffer provided by the local receiving application. The QUIC stack releases a reference to the packet buffer only after the data are copied to the application buffer. This design is more efficient for legitimate data transfers but enables an attacker to allocate a lot more memory than actually required by the data kept in the receiving stream buffer. To mitigate the vulnerability, the QUIC stack now calculates and monitors memory overhead for every stream. The memory overhead for a single stream frame is calculated as a difference between the size of the whole packet that carries the stream frame and the size of the stream frame itself. The memory overhead for a single stream frame is added to the total (cumulative) memory overhead QUIC stack keeps for each stream. Once the cumulative memory overhead exceeds 64kB, the QUIC stack moves the stream frame data from the packet buffer to the stream buffer, starting with the next packet received. FIPS impact: no The FIPS module is not affected as the QUIC implementation is outside of the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS

