CVE-2026-54876
Client-Side Memory Leak in OCSP Response Checking
Description
Issue summary: A malicious TLS server can cause a memory leak in a TLS client that has enabled OCSP response checking by sending an OCSP response that contains no single response entries. Impact summary: An attacker can leak an attacker-tunable amount of memory per TLS handshake in a victim client application. A long-running client that repeatedly connects to a malicious server can have its memory exhausted, resulting in a Denial of Service. CWE: CWE-401: Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime Description: The affected function is called during X.509 certificate chain verification when OCSP response checking is enabled with the X509_V_FLAG_OCSP_RESP_CHECK or X509_V_FLAG_OCSP_RESP_CHECK_ALL verification flags, for example when a TLS client verifies an OCSP response stapled into the TLS handshake by the server. When the received BasicOCSPResponse contains an empty SEQUENCE OF SingleResponse, which is permitted on the wire and accepted by the OpenSSL decoder, the OCSP_BASICRESP structure allocated by OCSP_response_get1_basic() was not freed because an early return bypassed the cleanup code at the end of the function. The amount of memory leaked per handshake can be amplified by the attacker by padding the certs field of the BasicOCSPResponse with bogus certificates, which are parsed and stored in the leaked structure before the empty response check triggers the early return. A long-running TLS client that repeatedly connects to a malicious server can have its memory exhausted over time. OCSP response checking is not enabled by default. Only client applications that explicitly enable the OCSP response check verification flags are affected. FIPS impact: no The FIPS modules in 4.0 and 3.6 are not affected by this issue as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
INFO
Published Date :
Aug. 5, 2026, 3:16 p.m.
Last Modified :
Aug. 5, 2026, 5:16 p.m.
Remotely Exploit :
No
Source :
[email protected]
Affected Products
The following products are affected by CVE-2026-54876
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 the TLS client to a fixed version.
- Disable OCSP response checking if not required.
- Ensure proper memory management in OCSP handling.
References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools
Here, you will find a curated list of external links that provide in-depth
information, practical solutions, and valuable tools related to
CVE-2026-54876.
CWE - Common Weakness Enumeration
While CVE identifies
specific instances of vulnerabilities, CWE categorizes the common flaws or
weaknesses that can lead to vulnerabilities. CVE-2026-54876 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-2026-54876
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-2026-54876 vulnerability anywhere in the article.
The following table lists the changes that have been made to the
CVE-2026-54876 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.
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CVE Modified by af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
Aug. 05, 2026
Action Type Old Value New Value Added Reference http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/08/05/8 -
New CVE Received by [email protected]
Aug. 05, 2026
Action Type Old Value New Value Added Affected [{'vendor': 'OpenSSL', 'product': 'OpenSSL', 'versions': [{'status': 'affected', 'version': '4.0.0', 'lessThan': '4.0.2', 'versionType': 'semver'}, {'status': 'affected', 'version': '3.6.0', 'lessThan': '3.6.4', 'versionType': 'semver'}], 'defaultStatus': 'unaffected'}] Added Description Issue summary: A malicious TLS server can cause a memory leak in a TLS client that has enabled OCSP response checking by sending an OCSP response that contains no single response entries. Impact summary: An attacker can leak an attacker-tunable amount of memory per TLS handshake in a victim client application. A long-running client that repeatedly connects to a malicious server can have its memory exhausted, resulting in a Denial of Service. CWE: CWE-401: Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime Description: The affected function is called during X.509 certificate chain verification when OCSP response checking is enabled with the X509_V_FLAG_OCSP_RESP_CHECK or X509_V_FLAG_OCSP_RESP_CHECK_ALL verification flags, for example when a TLS client verifies an OCSP response stapled into the TLS handshake by the server. When the received BasicOCSPResponse contains an empty SEQUENCE OF SingleResponse, which is permitted on the wire and accepted by the OpenSSL decoder, the OCSP_BASICRESP structure allocated by OCSP_response_get1_basic() was not freed because an early return bypassed the cleanup code at the end of the function. The amount of memory leaked per handshake can be amplified by the attacker by padding the certs field of the BasicOCSPResponse with bogus certificates, which are parsed and stored in the leaked structure before the empty response check triggers the early return. A long-running TLS client that repeatedly connects to a malicious server can have its memory exhausted over time. OCSP response checking is not enabled by default. Only client applications that explicitly enable the OCSP response check verification flags are affected. FIPS impact: no The FIPS modules in 4.0 and 3.6 are not affected by this issue as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary. Added CWE CWE-401 Added Reference https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/155b5fe0f93365e6df1c56ee3606b121080c6c12 Added Reference https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/d8c51048ac037a21bae0f41cad7a3920dc7f3638 Added Reference https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260805.txt