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Issue summary: The implementations of AES-SIV (RFC 5297)...

Moderate severity Unreviewed Published Jun 9, 2026 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Jun 10, 2026

Package

No package listedSuggest a package

Affected versions

Unknown

Patched versions

Unknown

Description

Issue summary: The implementations of AES-SIV (RFC 5297) and AES-GCM-SIV
(RFC 8452) mishandle the authentication of AAD (Additional Authenticated
Data) with an empty ciphertext allowing a forgery of such messages.

Impact summary: An attacker can forge empty messages with arbitrary AAD
to the victim's application using these ciphers.

AES-SIV (RFC 5297) and AES-GCM-SIV (RFC 8452) are nonce-misuse-resistant AEAD
modes: they accept a key, nonce, optional AAD (bytes that are authenticated
but not encrypted), and plaintext, and produces ciphertext plus a 16-byte
tag. On decrypt, EVP_DecryptFinal_ex() is documented to return success only
if the tag is verified succesfully.

In OpenSSL's provider implementation of these ciphers, the expected tag is
computed only when decryption function is invoked with non-empty data.
If the caller supplies AAD and then calls EVP_DecryptFinal_ex() without
invocation of the ciphertext update, which can happen when the received
ciphertext length is zero, the tag is never recalculated and still holds its
all-zeros value.

When AES-GCM-SIV is used, an attacker who sends arbitrary AAD, empty
ciphertext, and all-zeros tag passes authentication under any key they do not
know, single-shot. When AES-SIV is used, for mounting the attack it's
necessary for the application to reuse the decryption context without
resetting the key.

AES-SIV is implemented since OpenSSL 3.0. AES-GCM-SIV is implemented since
OpenSSL 3.2.

No protocols implemented in OpenSSL itself (TLS/CMS/PKCS7/HPKE/QUIC) support
either AES-GCM-SIV or AES-SIV. To mount an attack, the applications must
implement their own protocol and use the EVP interface. Also they must skip the
ciphertext update when a message with an empty ciphertext arrives.

The FIPS modules in 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, and 3.0 are not affected by this
issue, as these algorithms are not FIPS approved and the affected code is
outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.

References

Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jun 9, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jun 9, 2026
Last updated Jun 10, 2026

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(30th percentile)

Weaknesses

Missing Cryptographic Step

The product does not implement a required step in a cryptographic algorithm, resulting in weaker encryption than advertised by the algorithm. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-45446

GHSA ID

GHSA-7phf-qpm5-q6p3

Source code

No known source code

Dependabot alerts are not supported on this advisory because it does not have a package from a supported ecosystem with an affected and fixed version.

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