SEPTEMBER 18, 2026
Live Feed
Back to database
Case File

CVE-2026-45271

MEDIUM · CVSS 5.5 EPSS 0.11% Public Exploit

Source: NVD + CISA KEV + EPSS · Published 2026-08-21 · Last synced 2026-09-18

CyberRota Analysis

AI-Generated

The vulnerability affects the Picotls TLS protocol library, specifically its ASN.1 validation helper used by the minicrypto backend when parsing PKCS#8 private keys. An attacker can exploit this flaw by supplying a maliciously crafted private key file, leading to a potential stack exhaustion and application crash due to uncontrolled recursion in ASN.1 parsing. Organizations using Picotls with the minicrypto backend should prioritize patching to mitigate this risk.

Public Exploit Signal

A public exploit, PoC, GitHub repository or Metasploit reference was detected for this CVE.

Note: these links are listed for security research and verification purposes only.

CVE
CVE-2026-45271
Severity
MEDIUM
CVSS
5.5
EPSS
0.11%
OpenSSL

Original NVD Description

Picotls is a TLS protocol library that allows users select different crypto backends based on their use case. Picotls implements its own ASN.1 validation helper, which is used by the minicrypto backend while parsing local PKCS#8 private keys. Prior to commit c14231d801407640bc42c2dcf92783409ea6a7c7, the validator recursively descends into constructed ASN.1 elements without enforcing a maximum nesting depth. If an application loads an attacker-supplied private-key file through ptls_minicrypto_load_private_key(), or otherwise calls the public ASN.1 validation API on untrusted DER, a crafted deeply nested ASN.1 structure can exhaust the process stack and crash the application. Note that the libcrypto (OpenSSL) backend does not use the ASN.1 validation helper of picotls, and therefore is immune to this vulnerability. The vulnerability has been addressed in commit c14231d801407640bc42c2dcf92783409ea6a7c7.