Vulnerability in Erlang Erlang\/otp
CVE-2026-42791
Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability in Erlang OTP public_key (pubkey_ocsp module) allows forged OCSP responses signed with an expired responder certificate to be accepted as valid. OCSP response verification in pubkey_ocsp:verify_response/5 and pubkey_ocsp:is_authorized_responder/3 in lib/public_key/src/pubkey_ocsp.erl does not check the validity period (notBefore/notAfter) of the OCSP responder certificate. An attacker who has obtained the private key of an expired CA-designated OCSP responder certificate can forge OCSP responses that Erlang/OTP accepts as valid. This affects TLS clients using OCSP stapling via the ssl application: a malicious or compromised server can present a revoked TLS certificate together with a forged OCSP response signed by an expired responder key, and the client will accept the revoked certificate as valid. It also affects applications calling public_key:pkix_ocsp_validate/5 directly, where the impact depends on the use case — server-side client certificate validation using this API may allow authentication bypass with a revoked client certificate. This issue affects OTP from OTP 27.0 before OTP 29.0.1, OTP 28.5.0.1 and OTP 27.3.4.12, corresponding to public_key from 1.16 before 1.21.1, 1.20.3.1 and 1.17.1.3.
Vulnerability class: Improper Certificate Validation
Published · last modified .
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 3.7 (Low). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N.
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.003 (23.6th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 24th percentile — 23.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.003 · change: +0.000
Affected products
- Erlang Erlang\/otp
- Erlang Otp — versions 1.16, 27.0, 2b1a742c651b90f8a7a1fb2ddde73f29915ea376
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
- 6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db (related, vendor-advisory, Mitigation, Vendor Advisory)
- 6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db (related, Third Party Advisory)
- 6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db (related, Third Party Advisory)
- 6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db (Product, x_version-scheme)
- 6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db (Patch, patch)
- 6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db (Patch, patch)
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-42791?
- CVE-2026-42791 is a low-severity vulnerability in Erlang Erlang\/otp, classified under Improper Certificate Validation. CVSS score: 3.7/10. Published 2026-05-27.
- How severe is CVE-2026-42791?
- Low severity. CVSS v3 base score is 3.7 out of 10.