Issue summary: When an application drives an AES-OCB context through the
public EVP_Cipher() one-shot interface, the application-supplied
initialisation vector (IV) is silently discarded.
Impact summary: Every message encrypted under the same key uses the
same effective nonce regardless of the IV supplied by the caller,
resulting in (key, nonce) reuse and loss of confidentiality. If the
same code path is used to compute the authentication tag, the tag
depends only on the (key, IV) pair and not on the plaintext or
ciphertext, allowing universal forgery of arbitrary ciphertext from a
single captured message.
OpenSSL provides two ways to drive a cipher: the documented streaming
interface (EVP_CipherUpdate / EVP_CipherFinal_ex) and a lower-level
one-shot, EVP_Cipher(), whose documentation explicitly recommends
against use by applications in favour of EVP_CipherUpdate() and
EVP_CipherFinal_ex(). The OCB provider's streaming handler flushes
the application-supplied IV into the OCB context before processing
data; the one-shot handler did not. Every call to EVP_Cipher() on an
AES-OCB context therefore ran with the all-zero key-derived offset
state left by cipher initialisation, regardless of the caller's IV.
If EVP_EncryptFinal_ex() is subsequently used to obtain the
authentication tag, the deferred IV setup runs at that point and
clears the running checksum that should have been accumulated over the
plaintext. The resulting tag is a function of (key, IV) only and
verifies against any ciphertext produced under the same (key, IV)
pair.
The OpenSSL SSL/TLS implementation is not affected: AES-OCB is not a
TLS cipher suite, and libssl does not call EVP_Cipher() in any case.
Applications that drive AES-OCB through the documented streaming AEAD
API (EVP_CipherUpdate / EVP_CipherFinal_ex) are not affected. Only
applications that combine the AES-OCB cipher with the EVP_Cipher()
one-shot API are vulnerable.
The FIPS modules in 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4 and 3.0 are not affected by
this issue, as AES-OCB is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
What the EG score is made of (scorer v4.0: the three questions the 0–10 score mixes, published apart · methodology)
The EG score (7.5): severity, escalated by confirmed exploitation. This CVE's 7.5 is its impact severity (EG Severity), not escalated.
- EG Severity
- 7.5 HIGHCVSS-B, impact only: no KEV listing, EPSS or EG-KEV tier raises it.GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
- EG Likelihood
- 0.7% within 30 daysSource: FIRST EPSS (model v2026.06.15, score date 2026-10-30). FIRST's exploitation probability, not an EchelonGraph model.
- Confirmed exploitation
- None on record (CISA KEV, EG-KEV Tier 1)Reported apart from the likelihood: an observed fact, not a probability.
- EG Priority
- SSVC Track at medium mission impactTrack at low or medium mission impact; Attend at high (mission-essential systems).CISA BOD 26-04: 14 days if the affected system is publicly exposed; 60 days if it is not.Each input and its source, and whom BOD 26-04 binds: the SSVC and BOD 26-04 blocks below.
SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph)Track at low or medium mission impact; Attend at high (mission-essential systems).
A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low or medium mission impact and sooner than that at high.
Exploitation none (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable yes (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact partial (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE. Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it. CISA's table makes it high when Mission Prevalence is Essential — the vulnerable component "directly provides capabilities that constitute at least one MEF for at least one entity" (MEF: mission essential function) — or when Public Well-Being Impact is Irreversible: "multiple fatalities are likely", the cyber-physical system "is likely lost or destroyed", "extreme or serious externalities" are imposed on other parties, or social systems such as elections or the financial grid "are destabilized and potentially collapse". CISA's decision table
BOD 26-04 (CISA's remediation timeline, Table 1)14 days if the affected system is publicly exposed; 60 days if it is not.
The score's inputs: In CISA KEV no (CISA's KEV catalog) · Automatable yes (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact partial (CISA Vulnrichment). Whether your system is publicly exposed is yours to answer. BOD 26-04 binds US Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies; for anyone else it is CISA's published timeline, a reference rather than an obligation. The directive · how EchelonGraph applies it