Vulnerability in Openssl
CVE-2025-69418
Issue summary: When using the low-level OCB API directly with AES-NI or<br>other hardware-accelerated code paths, inputs whose length is not a multiple<br>of 16 bytes can leave the final partial block unencrypted and unauthenticated.<br><br>Impact summary: The trailing 1-15 bytes of a message may be exposed in<br>cleartext on encryption and are not covered by the authentication tag,<br>allowing an attacker to read or tamper with those bytes without detection.<br><br>The low-level OCB encrypt and decrypt routines in the hardware-accelerated<br>stream path process full 16-byte blocks but do not advance the input/output<br>pointers. The subsequent tail-handling code then operates on the original<br>base pointers, effectively reprocessing the beginning of the buffer while<br>leaving the actual trailing bytes unprocessed. The authentication checksum<br>also excludes the true tail bytes.<br><br>However, typical OpenSSL consumers using EVP are not affected because the<br>higher-level EVP and provider OCB implementations split inputs so that full<br>blocks and trailing partial blocks are processed in separate calls, avoiding<br>the problematic code path. Additionally, TLS does not use OCB ciphersuites.<br>The vulnerability only affects applications that call the low-level<br>CRYPTO_ocb128_encrypt() or CRYPTO_ocb128_decrypt() functions directly with<br>non-block-aligned lengths in a single call on hardware-accelerated builds.<br>For these reasons the issue was assessed as Low severity.<br><br>The FIPS modules in 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, 3.2, 3.1 and 3.0 are not affected<br>by this issue, as OCB mode is not a FIPS-approved algorithm.<br><br>OpenSSL 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, 3.0 and 1.1.1 are vulnerable to this issue.<br><br>OpenSSL 1.0.2 is not affected by this issue.
EPSS: 0.001 (1.8th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 4.0 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N.
Affected products
- Openssl — versions 3.6.0, 3.5.0, 3.4.0
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
- openssl-security@openssl.org (vendor-advisory, Vendor Advisory)
- openssl-security@openssl.org (Patch, patch)
- openssl-security@openssl.org (Patch, patch)
- openssl-security@openssl.org (Patch, patch)
- openssl-security@openssl.org (Patch, patch)
- openssl-security@openssl.org (Patch, patch)
- 0b142b55-0307-4c5a-b3c9-f314f3fb7c5e
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2025-69418?
- CVE-2025-69418 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Openssl, classified under Missing Cryptographic Step. CVSS score: 4.0/10. Published 2026-01-27.
- How severe is CVE-2025-69418?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.0 out of 10.