Vulnerability in Openssl

CVE-2022-3996

If an X.509 certificate contains a malformed policy constraint and policy processing is enabled, then a write lock will be taken twice recursively. On some operating systems (most widely: Windows) this results in a denial of service when the affected process hangs. Policy processing being enabled on a publicly facing server is not considered to be a common setup. Policy processing is enabled by passing the `-policy' argument to the command line utilities or by calling the `X509_VERIFY_PARAM_set1_policies()' function. Update (31 March 2023): The description of the policy processing enablement was corrected based on CVE-2023-0466.

EPSS: 0.012 (65.6th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2022-3996?
CVE-2022-3996 is a high-severity vulnerability in Openssl, classified under Improper Locking. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2022-12-13.
How severe is CVE-2022-3996?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2022-3996 known to be exploited?
8 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.