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Untrusted Sender DN Used as Format String in CMP Response Validation

OpenSSL · CVE-2026-63073 ZDI-26-789
0 news outlets0 CERTs and agencies0 researchers

What is it?

Issue summary: OpenSSL CMP response validation passed an unexpected response sender distinguished name directly as the format string to `ERR_raise_data()`. Impact summary: A malicious or intercepted CMP endpoint can crash a CMP client that enforces an expected sender or uses a pinned server certificate whose subject becomes the default expected sender. CWE: CWE-134 (Use of Externally-Controlled Format String) Description: When validating a received CMP message, ossl_cmp_msg_check_update() converts the peer-supplied sender distinguished name with X509_NAME_oneline() and passes it directly as the format argument to ERR_raise_data(). Percent characters survive the conversion, so a sender DN such as "CN=%s%n" reaches BIO_vsnprintf() as an attacker-controlled format string with no matching variadic arguments. This path is only reached when the caller configures an expected sender or pins a server certificate, which is the normal configuration for a CMP client validating server responses. Since the attacker controls the format string but none of the variadic arguments, such specifiers as %s and %n dereference or write through unrelated stack contents and crash the client. The reliabl

Evidence

Research (1)

Exploitation

  • Public proof of concept
  • Exploited in the wild
  • Listed as known exploited
CVSS
9.8
EPSS
1.2%
First seen
7 h ago
Status
confirmed

All OpenSSL vulnerabilities