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Fencer Intel
critical 9.8

CVE-2026-74900 json

openssl_encrypt before 1.4.0 Weak Shared Secret via PQC Simulation Mode

published 9mo ago modified last mo. also EUVD-2026-60117 , GHSA-p3gq-pcg9-qvfv , PYSEC-2026-3772

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.6%
EPSS 0.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 47%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

openssl_encrypt versions before 1.4.0 contain a critical vulnerability in pqc.py where KEM decapsulation failures silently fall back to simulation mode, generating a deterministic shared secret from only 16 bytes of the private key and publicly available encapsulated key data. Attackers who obtain 16 bytes of the private key can compute the shared secret and decrypt all ciphertext, as the fallback triggers on any KEM failure without raising an error.

Patch / fix

  • pypi openssl-encrypt 1.4.0
  • jahlives openssl_encrypt 1.4.0

Is CVE-2026-74900 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.

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
total
Assessed
2mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.56% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 47% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 9.3 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA 4.0 9.3 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi openssl-encrypt
<1.4.0
1.4.0

Affected products

  • jahlives openssl_encrypt

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-391 DEPRECATED: Unchecked Error Condition

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

The maintainers of jahlives/openssl_encrypt published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.