CVE-2026-69247
HighCVSS 8.2Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk7th percentile - higher than 7% of all known CVEs
Summary
cryptography, a cryptographic library for Python, versions 44.0.0 through 50.0.0, is vulnerable to a Bleichenbacher-style attack. Functions pkcs7_decrypt_der, pkcs7_decrypt_pem, and pkcs7_decrypt_smime reveal differences in decrypting encryptedKey, which can be exploited to decrypt the content-encryption key. Exploitation requires a service auto-decrypting untrusted EnvelopedData, e.g., S/MIME gateways. Fixed in version 50.0.0.
Risk Assessment
An attacker can decrypt sensitive data transmitted via S/MIME, posing a serious confidentiality breach.
Recommendation
Update the cryptography library to version 50.0.0 or later.
Other vulnerabilities in cryptography
See all- CVE-2026-39892Critical
The cryptography library for Python versions 45.0.0 through 46.0.6 contains a buffer overflow vulnerability. The issue occurs when a non-contiguous buffer is passed to APIs that accept Python buffers (e.g., Hash.update()). The flaw is fixed in version 46.0.7.
- CVE-2020-36242Critical
In the cryptography package for Python before version 3.3.2, sequences of update calls for symmetric encryption of multi-GB data can cause integer overflow and buffer overflow, as demonstrated with the Fernet class.
- CVE-2026-26007Medium
The cryptography library for Python before version 46.0.5 does not verify that a public key point belongs to the expected prime-order subgroup. This missing validation allows an attacker to provide a point from a small-order subgroup, leading to private key leakage in ECDH and signature forgery in ECDSA. Only SECT curves are affected.
Original NVD description (English source)
cryptography is a package designed to expose cryptographic primitives and recipes to Python developers. From 44.0.0 until 50.0.0, pkcs7_decrypt_der, pkcs7_decrypt_pem, and pkcs7_decrypt_smime reported the outcome of decrypting a RecipientInfo's encryptedKey in several distinguishable ways, one of which disclosed the exact length recovered from the RSA operation. The same distinction was also observable by timing. An application that decrypts attacker-supplied EnvelopedData and reflects the outcome gives the attacker a Bleichenbacher oracle against the content-encryption key. Decryption ran as RSA PKCS#1 v1.5 decrypt of encryptedKey, build an AES cipher from the result, then AES-CBC decrypt and PKCS#7 unpad. Invalid RSA padding, a valid padding with a bad key length, a correct length with a wrong key, and the real key each failed or succeeded differently. Case 1 is reachable only where the linked library lacks implicit rejection: OpenSSL 3.0 and 3.1, LibreSSL, and BoringSSL. Exploitation requires a service that auto-decrypts untrusted EnvelopedData matching the victim certificate and answers adaptively at high volume, such as an S/MIME gateway or mail filter. This issue is fixed in 50.0.0.

