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Fencer Intel
medium 4.8

CVE-2026-45446 json

Incorrect Tag Processing for Empty Messages in AES-GCM-SIV and AES-SIV modes

published 5mo ago modified 2mo ago also EUVD-2026-35490 , GHSA-7phf-qpm5-q6p3 , JLSEC-2026-1144

cvss
4.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 38%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Issue summary: The implementations of AES-SIV (RFC 5297) and AES-GCM-SIV (RFC 8452) mishandle the authentication of AAD (Additional Authenticated Data) with an empty ciphertext allowing a forgery of such messages.

Impact summary: An attacker can forge empty messages with arbitrary AAD to the victim's application using these ciphers.

AES-SIV (RFC 5297) and AES-GCM-SIV (RFC 8452) are nonce-misuse-resistant AEAD modes: they accept a key, nonce, optional AAD (bytes that are authenticated but not encrypted), and plaintext, and produces ciphertext plus a 16-byte tag. On decrypt, `EVP_DecryptFinal_ex()` is documented to return success only if the tag is verified succesfully.

In OpenSSL's provider implementation of these ciphers, the expected tag is computed only when decryption function is invoked with non-empty data. If the caller supplies AAD and then calls `EVP_DecryptFinal_ex()` without invocation of the ciphertext update, which can happen when the received ciphertext length is zero, the tag is never recalculated and still holds its all-zeros value.

When AES-GCM-SIV is used, an attacker who sends arbitrary AAD, empty ciphertext, and all-zeros tag passes authentication under any key they do not know, single-shot. When AES-SIV is used, for mounting the attack it's necessary for the application to reuse the decryption context without resetting the key.

AES-SIV is implemented since OpenSSL 3.0. AES-GCM-SIV is implemented since OpenSSL 3.2.

No protocols implemented in OpenSSL itself (TLS/CMS/PKCS7/HPKE/QUIC) support either AES-GCM-SIV or AES-SIV. To mount an attack, the applications must implement their own protocol and use the EVP interface. Also they must skip the ciphertext update when a message with an empty ciphertext arrives.

The FIPS modules in 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, and 3.0 are not affected by this issue, as these algorithms are not FIPS approved and the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.

Patch / fix

  • julia AppBundler 1.0.1
  • julia OpenSSL_jll 3.5.7+0
  • OpenSSL OpenSSL 3.0.21, 3.4.6, 3.5.7, 3.6.3, 4.0.1
  • openssl Debian 12 3.0.20-1~deb12u2
  • openssl Debian 13 3.5.6-1~deb13u2
  • openssl Debian 14 3.6.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-45446

  • openssl Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 3.0.2-0ubuntu1.25
  • openssl Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 3.0.13-0ubuntu3.11
  • openssl Ubuntu 25.10 3.5.3-1ubuntu3.4
  • openssl Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 3.5.5-1ubuntu3.2
  • openssl Ubuntu Pro FIPS-updates 22.04 LTS 3.0.2-0ubuntu1.25+Fips1
  • openssl-fips Ubuntu Pro FIPS-updates 24.04 LTS 3.0.13-0ubuntu3.12+Fips1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-45446

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • bootupd hummingbird 1 0.3.2-1.hum1
  • rust-bootupd hummingbird 1 0.3.2-1.hum1
  • ruby3.4 hummingbird 1 3.4.10-31.7.hum1
  • ruby3.4-libs hummingbird 1 3.4.10-31.7.hum1
  • ruby3.4-bundled-gems hummingbird 1 3.4.10-31.7.hum1
  • ruby3.4-default-gems hummingbird 1 3.4.10-31.7.hum1
  • ruby4.0 hummingbird 1 4.0.6-37.3.hum1
  • ruby4.0-libs hummingbird 1 4.0.6-37.3.hum1

red hat advisories RHSA-2026:67551RHSA-2026:62790RHSA-2026:62563RHSA-2026:62562RHSA-2026:55543RHSA-2026:42825

  • openssl-3 SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 3.2.3-150700.5.36.1
  • openssl-3 SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +3 more 3.0.8-150400.4.87.1
  • openssl-3 SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 3.5.0-160000.8.1
  • openssl-3 SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 3.0.8-150500.5.66.1
  • openssl-3 Linux Micro 6.1 3.1.4-slfo.1.1_10.1
  • openssl-3 Linux Micro 6.0 3.1.4-14.1
  • openssl-3 SLES for SAP 15 SP6, SLES 15 SP6-LTSS 3.1.4-150600.5.53.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:2648-1SUSE-SU-2026:2598-1SUSE-SU-2026:22251-1SUSE-SU-2026:22315-1SUSE-SU-2026:2397-1SUSE-SU-2026:2393-1

  • openssl-3 openSUSE Leap 16.0 3.5.0-160000.8.1
  • openssl-3 openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.5.3-6.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21005-1openSUSE-SU-2026:11023-1

  • openssl AlmaLinux 10 1:3.5.5-4.el10_2.alma.1
  • openssl-libs AlmaLinux 10 1:3.5.5-4.el10_2.alma.1
  • openssl-perl AlmaLinux 10 1:3.5.5-4.el10_2.alma.1
  • openssl AlmaLinux 9 1:3.5.5-4.el9_8
  • openssl-libs AlmaLinux 9 1:3.5.5-4.el9_8
  • openssl-perl AlmaLinux 9 1:3.5.5-4.el9_8

almalinux advisories ALSA-2026:25237ALSA-2026:25239

  • openssl Rocky Linux 10 1:3.5.5-4.el10_2
  • openssl Rocky Linux 9 1:3.5.5-4.el9_8

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2026:25237RLSA-2026:25239

  • openssl Alpine 3.21 3.3.7-r1
  • openssl Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 3.5.7-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2026-45446

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • openssl Azure Linux 3.0 3.3.7-3

azure linux advisories AZL-89937

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Is CVE-2026-45446 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-45446 updated cvss 3.7

openssl: Incorrect Tag Processing for Empty Messages in AES-GCM-SIV and AES-SIV modes

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 edk2, shim, shim-x64, edk2-ovmf, shim-aa64, edk2-tools, +4 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 edk2, shim, shim-unsigned-x64, shim-unsigned-aarch64 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Cert Manager support for Red Hat OpenShift release 1.17 cert-manager/cert-manager-operator-rhel9 1791788287, cert-manager/jetstack-cert-manager-rhel9 1791371069, cert-manager/cert-manager-operator-bundle 1791970484, cert-manager/jetstack-cert-manager-acmesolver-rhel9 1791371080
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:82888
  • Red Hat Cert Manager support for Red Hat OpenShift release 1.18 cert-manager/cert-manager-operator-rhel9 1789029076, cert-manager/jetstack-cert-manager-rhel9 1791459711, cert-manager/cert-manager-istio-csr-rhel9 1791459759, cert-manager/cert-manager-operator-bundle 1791966259, cert-manager/jetstack-cert-manager-acmesolver-rhel9 1791459707
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:82354
  • Red Hat Cert Manager support for Red Hat OpenShift release 1.20 cert-manager/cert-manager-trust-manager-rhel9 1790598593
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:72502
  • Red Hat Discovery 2 discovery/discovery-ui-rhel9 1782166952, discovery/discovery-server-rhel9 1782159791
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:29197
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) openssl-perl 3.5.5-4.el9_8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:25239
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 10) openssl-perl 3.5.5-4.el10_2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:25237
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) openssl 3.5.5-4.el9_8, openssl-libs 3.5.5-4.el9_8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:25239
show 5 more
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 10) openssl 3.5.5-4.el10_2, openssl-libs 3.5.5-4.el10_2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:25237
  • Red Hat Hardened Images bootupd 0.3.2-1.hum1, chunkah 0.6.0-3.hum1, openssl 3.5.8-0.1.hum1, openssl3 3.5.8-0.1.hum1, ruby4.0 4.0.6-37.3.hum1, ruby3.3 3.3.10-23.6.hum1, +20 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:67551
  • Red Hat Insights proxy 1.5 insights-proxy/insights-proxy-container-rhel9 1782890503
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:34102
  • Red Hat Update Infrastructure 5 rhui5/cds-rhel9 1781525684, rhui5/rhua-rhel9 1781525739, rhui5/haproxy-rhel9 1781525671, rhui5/rhua-tp-rhel9 1787241260, rhui5/installer-rhel9 1781525693, rhui5/installer-tp-rhel9 1787135742, +1 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:58981
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 openssl, openssl-perl Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 ovmf, OVMF, AAVMF Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 edk2, shim, openssl, shim-x64, edk2-ovmf, shim-aa64, +9 more Red Hat Hardened Images rust, unbound, netavark, openshell, rust-podman-sequoia, rubygem3.3-rbs 3.4.0-23.6.hum1, +50 more Red Hat JBoss Core Services jbcs-httpd24-openssl, jbcs-httpd24-openssl-libs, jbcs-httpd24-openssl-perl, jbcs-openssl-win6-x86_64.zip 3.5.5-SP4 Red Hat JBoss Web Server 6 jws-optional-native-components-win6-x86_64.zip 6.2.4.ER1
    +2 more products
    Red Hat JBoss Web Server 7 jws-optional-native-components-win6-x86_64.zip 6.2.4.ER1 Red Hat Update Infrastructure 5 rhui5/cds-tp-rhel9 1787241206, rhui5/cds-kubernetes-rhel9 1781525677
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
5mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.44% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 38% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 4.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
CNA 3.1 4.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
OSV 3.1 4.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
julia AppBundler
>=1.0.0, <1.0.1
1.0.1
julia OpenSSL_jll
>=3.0.8+0, <3.5.7+0
3.5.7+0
julia Openresty_jll
>=1.27.1+0
 no fix listed

Affected products

  • OpenSSL OpenSSL

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-325 Missing Cryptographic Step
Technology feeds

References

Sources

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