← back
CVE-2026-63073criticalCWE-134

Untrusted Sender DN Used as Format String in CMP Response Validation

28Vexday Risk Score

No sign of exploitation. No public exploitation artifact known so far.

ssvc Trackcvss 9.8epss 0.9%
exploitation probability
0.9%top 41% of all CVEs
observed exploitation
nono source reports 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 reliable consequence is a denial of service, when the response comes from a malicious or intercepted CMP endpoint. There is no controlled memory write, arbitrary-address read, or reliable path to remote code execution. FIPS impact: no No FIPS modules are affected by this issue, as the CMP protocol implementation is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Affected products
OpenSSL · OpenSSL