Excessive Memory Use Buffering DTLS Records for a Future Epoch

MITRE NVD CVE.ORG JSON API

Summary

CVECVE-2026-54874
StatePUBLISHED
Assigneropenssl
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-08-25 13:19:24 UTC
Updated2026-08-25 15:16:33 UTC
DescriptionIssue summary: Receiving a DTLS record for a future epoch while a handshake is in progress causes OpenSSL to buffer far more memory than the record itself requires. Impact summary: A peer can use a small amount of network traffic to make an OpenSSL DTLS endpoint retain a disproportionately large amount of memory, which may lead to a Denial of Service. CWE: CWE-405: Asymmetric Resource Consumption (Amplification) Description: While a DTLS handshake is in progress, a peer may legitimately have already moved on to the next epoch (for example, having sent its ChangeCipherSpec and Finished messages) before the local endpoint has processed the same transition, typically because of reordering on the underlying UDP transport. OpenSSL buffers such early records so that they can be processed once the local endpoint catches up. Buffering a record currently retains the entire read buffer it arrived in, which is sized to hold the largest possible DTLS record (around 16 kilobytes), rather than just the bytes that make up the record itself. Up to 100 such records may be buffered per connection. As a result, a peer that sends a stream of small forged records claiming to belong to the next epoch can cause an OpenSSL DTLS endpoint to retain around 1.7 megabytes of memory, despite sending only a small fraction of that amount of data over the network. An attacker therefore gains a memory amplification factor of around 1200, and can multiply the effect across as many associations as it is able to open, making this a remote memory exhaustion Denial of Service risk for DTLS servers. Since the memory retained per connection remains bounded, and any limit an application already places on the number of concurrent associations also bounds the total exposure, this issue has been assessed as Low severity. FIPS impact: no No FIPS modules are affected by this issue as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary. OpenSSL 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.0, 1.1.1 and 1.0.2 are vulnerable to this issue. OpenSSL 4.0 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 4.0.2. OpenSSL 3.6 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 3.6.4. OpenSSL 3.5 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 3.5.8. OpenSSL 3.4 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 3.4.7. OpenSSL 3.0 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 3.0.22. Premium support customers only: OpenSSL 1.1.1 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 1.1.1zi OpenSSL 1.0.2 users should upgrade to OpenSSL 1.0.2zr This issue was reported on 18 May 2026 by Amazon Web Services. The fix has been developed by Matt Caswell. -- cut (non-publishing metadata for internal use) -- Reported by: Amazon Web Services Fixed by: Matt Caswell

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 7.5 HIGH from ADP

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Problem Types: CWE-405 | CWE-405 CWE-405 Asymmetric Resource Consumption (Amplification)

VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1ADPDECLARED7.5HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
3.1134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0Secondary7.5HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA OpenSSL OpenSSL affected 4.0.0 4.0.2 semver Not specified
CNA OpenSSL OpenSSL affected 3.6.0 3.6.4 semver Not specified
CNA OpenSSL OpenSSL affected 3.5.0 3.5.8 semver Not specified
CNA OpenSSL OpenSSL affected 3.4.0 3.4.7 semver Not specified
CNA OpenSSL OpenSSL affected 3.0.0 3.0.22 semver Not specified
CNA OpenSSL OpenSSL affected 1.1.1 1.1.1zi custom Not specified
CNA OpenSSL OpenSSL affected 1.0.2 1.0.2zr custom Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/4808b5d64176451f3d93d87d0ac9c81a9b13fb23 [email protected] github.com
openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260825.txt [email protected] openssl-library.org
github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/cc0c6710917cd5eec001b297355d2ba723505107 [email protected] github.com
github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/7110cb2f75806d0bf809eb2f90790d477900be40 [email protected] github.com
github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/a0c8ec557d9cac078f032d76cdf684fe743eb382 [email protected] github.com
github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/f52ffc11b90737ac89083909618dc2e1f42c561c [email protected] github.com
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

Vendor Comments And Credit

Discovery Credit

CNA: Amazon Web Services (en)

CNA: Matt Caswell (en)

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