CVE-2026-45445
Published:June 09, 2026
Updated:June 11, 2026
Issue summary: When an application drives an AES-OCB context through the
public EVP_Cipher() one-shot interface, the application-supplied
initialisation vector (IV) is silently discarded.
Impact summary: Every message encrypted under the same key uses the
same effective nonce regardless of the IV supplied by the caller,
resulting in (key, nonce) reuse and loss of confidentiality. If the
same code path is used to compute the authentication tag, the tag
depends only on the (key, IV) pair and not on the plaintext or
ciphertext, allowing universal forgery of arbitrary ciphertext from a
single captured message.
OpenSSL provides two ways to drive a cipher: the documented streaming
interface (EVP_CipherUpdate / EVP_CipherFinal_ex) and a lower-level
one-shot, EVP_Cipher(), whose documentation explicitly recommends
against use by applications in favour of EVP_CipherUpdate() and
EVP_CipherFinal_ex(). The OCB provider's streaming handler flushes
the application-supplied IV into the OCB context before processing
data; the one-shot handler did not. Every call to EVP_Cipher() on an
AES-OCB context therefore ran with the all-zero key-derived offset
state left by cipher initialisation, regardless of the caller's IV.
If EVP_EncryptFinal_ex() is subsequently used to obtain the
authentication tag, the deferred IV setup runs at that point and
clears the running checksum that should have been accumulated over the
plaintext. The resulting tag is a function of (key, IV) only and
verifies against any ciphertext produced under the same (key, IV)
pair.
The OpenSSL SSL/TLS implementation is not affected: AES-OCB is not a
TLS cipher suite, and libssl does not call EVP_Cipher() in any case.
Applications that drive AES-OCB through the documented streaming AEAD
API (EVP_CipherUpdate / EVP_CipherFinal_ex) are not affected. Only
applications that combine the AES-OCB cipher with the EVP_Cipher()
one-shot API are vulnerable.
The FIPS modules in 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4 and 3.0 are not affected by
this issue, as AES-OCB is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
Affected Packages
openssl (CONDA):
Affected version(s) >=3.4.0 <3.4.6Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 3.4.6openssl (CONDA):
Affected version(s) >=3.0.0 <3.0.21Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 3.0.21openssl (CONDA):
Affected version(s) >=3.6.0 <3.6.3Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 3.6.3openssl (CONDA):
Affected version(s) >=3.5.0 <3.5.7Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 3.5.7https://github.com/openssl/openssl.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=openssl-3.5.0 <openssl-3.5.7Fix Suggestion:
Update to version openssl-3.5.7https://github.com/openssl/openssl.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=openssl-3.0.0 <openssl-3.0.21Fix Suggestion:
Update to version openssl-3.0.21https://github.com/openssl/openssl.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) =openssl-4.0.0 <openssl-4.0.1Fix Suggestion:
Update to version openssl-4.0.1https://github.com/openssl/openssl.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=openssl-3.4.0 <openssl-3.4.6Fix Suggestion:
Update to version openssl-3.4.6https://github.com/openssl/openssl.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=openssl-3.6.0 <openssl-3.6.3Fix Suggestion:
Update to version openssl-3.6.3Related Resources (11)
Do you need more information?
Contact UsCVSS v4
Base Score:
8.7
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
NONE
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
HIGH
Vulnerable System Integrity
NONE
Vulnerable System Availability
NONE
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
7.5
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
NONE
Availability
NONE
Weakness Type (CWE)
Missing Cryptographic Step
EPSS
Base Score:
0.02