Description
Issue summary: Processing a maliciously formatted PKCS12 file may lead OpenSSL to crash leading to a potential Denial of Service attack Impact summary: Applications loading files in the PKCS12 format from untrusted sources might terminate abruptly. A file in PKCS12 format can contain certificates and keys and may come from an untrusted source. The PKCS12 specification allows certain fields to be NULL, but OpenSSL does not correctly check for this case. This can lead to a NULL pointer dereference that results in OpenSSL crashing. If an application processes PKCS12 files from an untrusted source using the OpenSSL APIs then that application will be vulnerable to this issue. OpenSSL APIs that are vulnerable to this are: PKCS12_parse(), PKCS12_unpack_p7data(), PKCS12_unpack_p7encdata(), PKCS12_unpack_authsafes() and PKCS12_newpass(). We have also fixed a similar issue in SMIME_write_PKCS7(). However since this function is related to writing data we do not consider it security significant. The FIPS modules in 3.2, 3.1 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue.
CVSS Metrics
- Vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Attack Vector
- local
- Complexity
- low
- Privileges
- none
- User Action
- required
- Scope
- unchanged
- Confidentiality
- none
- Integrity
- none
- Availability
- high
- Weaknesses
- CWE-476NVD-CWE-noinfoCWE-476
Metadata
- Primary Vendor
- OPENSSL
- Published
- 1/26/2024
- Last Modified
- 11/3/2025
- Source
- NIST NVD
- Note: Verify all details with official vendor sources before applying patches.
Affected Products
AI-Powered Remediation
Generate remediation guidance or a C-suite brief for this vulnerability.