Potential CPU DoS via O(n^2) Fragment Reassembly in QUIC (OpenSSL OpenSSL)

CVE-2026-42772
MEDIUM 5.3

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.50 % · percentile 43 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
openssl
NVD status
Analyzed

Description

Issue summary: The QUIC stream reassembly algorithm performance deteriorates progressively as packets are arriving out of order. The worst case has a quadratic complexity proportional to the number of stream frames kept in the buffer for the received stream data. Impact summary: A remote QUIC peer that completes the handshake can create a connection-scoped CPU pressure and potentially a Denial of Service using compliant STREAM frames inside the advertised receive window, with low attacker bandwidth. CWE: CWE-407: Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity Description: OpenSSL manages received QUIC stream fragments using a doubly-linked list. While it optimizes for append operations (at the end of the list), it falls back to a head-to-tail linear search for any fragment that does not immediately follow the current `tail`. By manipulating the sequence of offsets, an attacker can force the server to perform O(n^2) operations, consuming excessive CPU time for the QUIC process. FIPS impact: no The FIPS module is not affected as the QUIC implementation is outside of the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-407 — Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.3CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:LCISA-ADP
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.3CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:LNVD · 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 (Secondary)

European references

CERT-FR advisories

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

Affected products

ProductVersions
OpenSSL · OpenSSLaffected 4.0.0 < 4.0.3 ; affected 3.6.0 < 3.6.5 ; affected 3.5.0 < 3.5.9 ; affected 3.4.0 < 3.4.8

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
CERT-FR (ANSSI)Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD