CVE-2025-69418 | Unauthenticated/unencrypted trailing bytes with low-level OCB function calls

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.

Published: 2026-01-27 Last update: 2026-05-12 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-69418 is rated Low Risk (17/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.02%). Mandatory action: Low composite risk—no urgent action required; patch on your normal maintenance cycle and revisit priority if CVSS or EPSS increases.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-69418

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-01-28 0.02%

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-69418

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.0 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
1.4 2.5 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-69418

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2025-69418

GHSA-78qr-24v5-7q73 · Severity: medium — Issue summary: When using the low-level OCB API directly with AES-NI or<br>other hardware...

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-69418

vendor priority summary link
alpine CVE-2025-69418: 1 source package rows (openssl); 147 state rows across 6 repos (3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, 3.23-main, edge-main); fixed 5, open 142. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2025-69418
debian not yet assigned CVE-2025-69418 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (openssl), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-69418
redhat low https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-69418
suse medium CVE-2025-69418 severity moderate: SUSE including 441 source package names (1.1.1-1.15:libopenssl3-3.2.3-150700.5.24.1, 1.1.1-1.15:openssl-3-3.2.3-150700.5.24.1, …), 1438 product×package rows across 298 product lines (Container private-registry/harbor-core, Container private-registry/harbor-exporter, … (298 product lines)): Fixed 1044, Known Affected 231, Known Not Affected 156, First Fixed 7. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-69418/
ubuntu low CVE-2025-69418 low priority: Ubuntu including 4 source packages (edk2, nodejs, openssl, openssl1.0), 32 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 11, not-affected 8, released 6, DNE 4, ignored 2, needed 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-69418

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-69418

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
openssl openssl >= 1.1.1, < 1.1.1ze cpe:2.3:a:openssl:openssl:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
openssl openssl >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.19 cpe:2.3:a:openssl:openssl:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
openssl openssl >= 3.3.0, < 3.3.6 cpe:2.3:a:openssl:openssl:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
openssl openssl >= 3.4.0, < 3.4.4 cpe:2.3:a:openssl:openssl:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
openssl openssl >= 3.5.0, < 3.5.5 cpe:2.3:a:openssl:openssl:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
openssl openssl >= 3.6.0, < 3.6.1 cpe:2.3:a:openssl:openssl:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2025-69418

cvelogic Threat Intelligence