What is CVE-2003-0545?

CVE-2003-0545 is a critical-severity vulnerability in OpenSSL, classified under Double Free. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2003-11-17.

How severe is CVE-2003-0545?

Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.

Is CVE-2003-0545 known to be exploited?

3 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Double Free in OpenSSL

CVE-2003-0545

Double free vulnerability in OpenSSL 0.9.7 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code via an SSL client certificate with a certain invalid ASN.1 encoding.

Vulnerability class: Double Free

Published 2003-11-17 · last modified 2026-06-16.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.875 (99.8th percentile), scored 2026-10-16.

High probability of exploitation in the next 30 days — patch promptly. 100th percentile — 99.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.875 · newest: 0.875 · change: 0.000

Affected products

OpenSSL — versions 0.9.6, 0.9.7

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-415 — Double Free

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2003-292.html (vendor-advisory, Patch, Broken Link, Vendor Advisory)
www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2006/3900 (vdb-entry, Broken Link)
www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss (Broken Link)
www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/935264 (US Government Resource, Third Party Advisory, third-party-advisory)
www.uniras.gov.uk/vuls/2003/006489/openssl.htm (Patch, Broken Link, Vendor Advisory)
www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-394 (vendor-advisory, Broken Link)
www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2003-26.html (US Government Resource, Third Party Advisory, third-party-advisory)
secunia.com/advisories/22249 (Broken Link, Vendor Advisory, third-party-advisory)
oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval:org.mitre.oval:def:2590 (Broken Link, signature, vdb-entry)
www.securityfocus.com/bid/8732 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry, Broken Link)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2003-0545?: CVE-2003-0545 is a critical-severity vulnerability in OpenSSL, classified under Double Free. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2003-11-17.
How severe is CVE-2003-0545?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2003-0545 known to be exploited?: 3 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.