OpenSSL CMP Client NULLPointer Deref via Crafted Revocation Response
CVE-2026-75805 Published on September 29, 2026
NULL Pointer Dereference in CMP Client Revocation Response Handling
Issue summary: A CMP client that requests certificate revocation on the basis
of a PKCS#10 CSR may dereference a NULL pointer and terminate abnormally when
processing a crafted revocation response.
Impact summary: The NULL pointer dereference happens on a read which
leads to a crash and a Denial of Service for the affected client application.
CWE: CWE-476: NULL-pointer dereference
Description: A CMP client revoking a certificate has to tell the server which
certificate to revoke, and may do so by supplying a PKCS#10 CSR instead of the
certificate itself or its issuer name and serial number. This is
'openssl cmp -cmd rr -csr <file>' on the command line, or
OSSL_CMP_exec_RR_ses() with the certificate supplied via
OSSL_CMP_CTX_set1_p10CSR() through the API.
A CSR does not contain the issuer name and serial number of the certificate,
so the client does not send them. A server may optionally name the
certificate it revoked in its response, and the client then compares that
name against what it sent. Having sent neither an issuer name nor a serial
number, it has nothing to compare against, and a server returning a specially
crafted name causes the client to read from a NULL pointer and crash.
The revocation response is checked for valid message protection before
the affected code is reached, so an attacker must be a malicious or
compromised CMP server, or a man-in-the-middle in possession of the
secret used for message protection. Clients that identify the certificate
to be revoked by a certificate or by issuer and serial number rather
than by a PKCS#10 CSR are not affected.
FIPS impact: no
No FIPS modules are affected by this issue, as the CMP protocol
implementation is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2026-75805 can be exploited with network access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have no impact on confidentiality and integrity, and a small impact on availability.
Weakness Type
NULL Pointer Dereference
A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit. NULL pointer dereference issues can occur through a number of flaws, including race conditions, and simple programming omissions.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-75805
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