0.0
NA
CVE-2026-42769
Trust-Anchor Substitution via cert/issuer Typo in CMP rootCaKeyUpdate
Description

Issue Summary: An error in the callback used to verify the certificate provided in a Root CA key update Certificate Management Protocol (CMP) message response rendered the certificate validation ineffectual, which could lead to escalation of credentials from the Registration Authority (RA) level to the root Certification Authority (root CA) level. Impact Summary: The Registration Autority could replace the root CA certificate for the CMP clients with an arbitrary root CA certificate. One of the parts of the Certificate Management Protocol (CMP), specified in RFC 9810, is Root Certification Authority (root CA) key Rollover, which is sent by the server in a message with type 'id-it-rootCaKeyUpdate'. As part of these messages, 'newWithOld' certificate, the new root CA certificate signed with the old root CA key, is provided, and verifying its signature is crucial for transferring the trust from the old CA key to the new one. The 'id-it-rootCaKeyUpdate' messages are expected to be processed with OSSL_CMP_get1_rootCaKeyUpdate(), that is expected to verify the 'newWithOld' certificate. A typo in the certificate chain building code led to adding an incorrect certificate ('newWithOld' instead of 'oldRoot') to the certificate chain, rendering the certificate verification process ineffectual (only the issuer name and the algorithm OIDs were verified by other parts of the verification code). An attacker who already has credentials that satisfy the CMP message protection checks can generate a new key pair and use a crafted self-signed certificate in its 'id-it-rootCaKeyUpdate' CMP messages which affected CMP clients would accept as a new trust anchor. Significant preconditions for the attack (having valid RA-level credentials) are the reason the issue was assigned Low severity. The FIPS modules are not affected by this issue, as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.

INFO

Published Date :

June 9, 2026, 5:17 p.m.

Last Modified :

June 9, 2026, 5:17 p.m.

Remotely Exploit :

No
Affected Products

The following products are affected by CVE-2026-42769 vulnerability. Even if cvefeed.io is aware of the exact versions of the products that are affected, the information is not represented in the table below.

No affected product recoded yet

Solution
Update OpenSSL to fix certificate validation error in CMP root CA key update messages.
  • Update OpenSSL to the latest version.
  • Verify certificate validation logic.
  • Apply vendor patches for CMP.
  • Review certificate management processes.
CWE - Common Weakness Enumeration

While CVE identifies specific instances of vulnerabilities, CWE categorizes the common flaws or weaknesses that can lead to vulnerabilities. CVE-2026-42769 is associated with the following CWEs:

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC) stores attack patterns, which are descriptions of the common attributes and approaches employed by adversaries to exploit the CVE-2026-42769 weaknesses.

We scan GitHub repositories to detect new proof-of-concept exploits. Following list is a collection of public exploits and proof-of-concepts, which have been published on GitHub (sorted by the most recently updated).

Results are limited to the first 15 repositories due to potential performance issues.

The following list is the news that have been mention CVE-2026-42769 vulnerability anywhere in the article.

The following table lists the changes that have been made to the CVE-2026-42769 vulnerability over time.

Vulnerability history details can be useful for understanding the evolution of a vulnerability, and for identifying the most recent changes that may impact the vulnerability's severity, exploitability, or other characteristics.

  • New CVE Received by [email protected]

    Jun. 09, 2026

    Action Type Old Value New Value
    Added Description Issue Summary: An error in the callback used to verify the certificate provided in a Root CA key update Certificate Management Protocol (CMP) message response rendered the certificate validation ineffectual, which could lead to escalation of credentials from the Registration Authority (RA) level to the root Certification Authority (root CA) level. Impact Summary: The Registration Autority could replace the root CA certificate for the CMP clients with an arbitrary root CA certificate. One of the parts of the Certificate Management Protocol (CMP), specified in RFC 9810, is Root Certification Authority (root CA) key Rollover, which is sent by the server in a message with type 'id-it-rootCaKeyUpdate'. As part of these messages, 'newWithOld' certificate, the new root CA certificate signed with the old root CA key, is provided, and verifying its signature is crucial for transferring the trust from the old CA key to the new one. The 'id-it-rootCaKeyUpdate' messages are expected to be processed with OSSL_CMP_get1_rootCaKeyUpdate(), that is expected to verify the 'newWithOld' certificate. A typo in the certificate chain building code led to adding an incorrect certificate ('newWithOld' instead of 'oldRoot') to the certificate chain, rendering the certificate verification process ineffectual (only the issuer name and the algorithm OIDs were verified by other parts of the verification code). An attacker who already has credentials that satisfy the CMP message protection checks can generate a new key pair and use a crafted self-signed certificate in its 'id-it-rootCaKeyUpdate' CMP messages which affected CMP clients would accept as a new trust anchor. Significant preconditions for the attack (having valid RA-level credentials) are the reason the issue was assigned Low severity. The FIPS modules are not affected by this issue, as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
    Added CWE CWE-295
    Added Reference https://github.com/openssl/security/commit/54d0989997e5fc26057009a9782c3441ce3842fb
    Added Reference https://github.com/openssl/security/commit/777b363b16fcf2153bb3ded39dc3838713667c44
    Added Reference https://github.com/openssl/security/commit/d35cd473a271bf3ce7bf3d32af53217fb83ae92c
    Added Reference https://github.com/openssl/security/commit/d531f21c0fe99067a66fc0ff1161ef127f9cd70b
    Added Reference https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260609.txt
EPSS is a daily estimate of the probability of exploitation activity being observed over the next 30 days. Following chart shows the EPSS score history of the vulnerability.