CVE-2026-81721
Medium
Elevated severity or exploit probability.
CVSS base
7.5
HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS — probability of exploitation (30 days)
0.4%
33.3th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness / dates
CWE-400
Published 2026-08-27 · modified 2026-09-02
CVSS breakdown
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
| Attack Vector | N | Network |
| Attack Complexity | L | Low |
| Privileges Required | N | None |
| User Interaction | N | None |
| Scope | U | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | N | None |
| Integrity | N | None |
| Availability | H | High |
Timeline
- 2026-08-27 — Published (NVD)
- 2026-09-02 — Last modified (NVD)
Description
openssl_encrypt before 1.4.9 fails to validate KDF cost parameters in encrypted file metadata and keystore headers, allowing attackers to trigger unbounded memory allocation. Attackers can craft malicious encrypted files declaring arbitrarily large Argon2, scrypt, or balloon KDF parameters to exhaust system memory and crash the process without authentication.