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OpenSSL CMS AuthEnvelopedData Forged Message Acceptance

IdentifiersCVE-2026-34182CWE-20

OpenSSL CMS processing for AuthEnvelopedData fails to sufficiently validate the cipher selection and authentication tag length fields in CMS containers. In the documented non-AEAD cipher case, OpenSSL accepts an AuthEnvelopedData object whose inner content-encryption algorithm identifier has been rewritten from an AEAD mode such as AES-GCM to a non-AEAD mode such as AES-256-OFB, while leaving recipientInfos intact so the victim still unwraps the genuine CEK. OpenSSL then decrypts using the real CEK under the attacker-selected unauthenticated mode and does not properly enforce MAC validation, allowing CMS_decrypt() to return success on forged content. In a second case, an attacker can reduce the AEAD tag length to a single byte, making brute-force integrity bypass feasible. The issue affects OpenSSL 4.0.0 before 4.0.1, 3.6.0 before 3.6.3, 3.5.0 before 3.5.7, 3.4.0 before 3.4.6, and 3.0.0 before 3.0.21. The FIPS modules are not affected.

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

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Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation can allow forged CMS AuthEnvelopedData messages to be accepted as valid, defeating message integrity guarantees. In oracle-bearing application flows where an attacker can observe decryption success or failure, the flaw may provide key-equivalent functionality for the CEK associated with a chosen CMS recipient. Separately, truncating the AEAD tag to one byte enables practical brute-force acceptance of modified ciphertext, resulting in integrity bypass for applications that rely on CMS_decrypt() to reject tampered content.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

No complete workaround is provided in the advisory content. Reduce exposure by avoiding vulnerable CMS AuthEnvelopedData processing paths where possible, especially for untrusted input, and by ensuring applications do not expose attacker-observable decryption success/failure indicators that could act as an oracle. Environments constrained to FIPS module operation are stated to be unaffected.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade OpenSSL to a fixed release: 4.0.1 or later, 3.6.3 or later, 3.5.7 or later, 3.4.6 or later, or 3.0.21 or later, as applicable to the deployed branch. Downstream consumers should apply vendor-packaged updates where available. Validate that applications processing CMS AuthEnvelopedData are linked against the patched library versions.
PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

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VALID 0 / 0 TOTALView more in app

No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

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FreebsdFreebsdapplication

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