CVE-2026-35189 is a vulnerability in OpenSSL
Published on September 29, 2026
Excessive Memory Allocation in Relative CRLDP Processing
Issue summary: A certificate with many nameRelativeToCRLIssuer CRL
distribution points causes disproportionate heap growth when OpenSSL caches
X.509 extensions.
Impact summary: Receiving a crafted certificate from a malicious peer can lead
to significant memory pressure and possible Denial of Service in clients or
in servers that solicit client certificates.
CWE: CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Description: A certificate or a set of certificates that fits under the limit for
size of certificates accepted from the peer (~100 KiB) can result in allocation
of several hundred MiB of resident memory on the receiving side
during a normal TLS handshake. This may be enough to crash the client or
server, if multiple concurrent connections lead to similarly large memory
allocations.
The fix postpones processing of the CRL distribution points extensions in
certificates to the time when the processed value is required for CRL processing.
This avoids keeping large memory allocations for a long time when such
certificates are received.
FIPS impact: no
The affected code is outside the FIPS module boundary.
Weakness Type
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
The software allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated, in violation of the intended security policy for that actor.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-35189
Want to know whenever a new CVE is published for OpenSSL? stack.watch will email you.
Affected Versions
OpenSSL:- Version 4.0.0 and below 4.0.3 is affected.
- Version 3.6.0 and below 3.6.5 is affected.
- Version 3.5.0 and below 3.5.9 is affected.
- Version 3.4.0 and below 3.4.8 is affected.
- Version 3.0.0 and below 3.0.23 is affected.
- Version 1.1.1 and below 1.1.1zj is affected.
- Version 1.0.2 and below 1.0.2zs is affected.