Security Bulletin
Summary
IBM i is vulnerable to multiple vulnerabilities [CVE-2026-35189, CVE-2026-54872, CVE-2026-75805, CVE-2026-75806, CVE-2026-77696, CVE-2026-84782] in OpenSSL as described in the vulnerability details section.
Vulnerability Details
CVEID: CVE-2026-35189
DESCRIPTION: Issue summary: A certificate with many nameRelativeToCRLIssuer CRL
distribution points causes disproportionate heap growth when OpenSSL caches
X.509 extensions.
Impact summary: Receiving a crafted certificate from a malicious peer can lead
to significant memory pressure and possible Denial of Service in clients or
in servers that solicit client certificates.
CWE: CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Description: A certificate or a set of certificates that fits under the limit for
size of certificates accepted from the peer (~100 KiB) can result in allocation
of several hundred MiB of resident memory on the receiving side
during a normal TLS handshake. This may be enough to crash the client or
server, if multiple concurrent connections lead to similarly large memory
allocations.
The fix postpones processing of the CRL distribution points extensions in
certificates to the time when the processed value is required for CRL processing.
This avoids keeping large memory allocations for a long time when such
certificates are received.
FIPS impact: no
The affected code is outside the FIPS module boundary.
CWE: CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
CVSS Source: CISA ADP
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L)
CVEID: CVE-2026-54872
DESCRIPTION: Issue summary: The generic elliptic-curve scalar multiplication used for
ECDSA and SM2 signature operations with curves that do not have a dedicated
implementation leaks information about the secret nonce through timing.
Impact summary: An attacker able to measure signing times may learn
information about the per-signature secret nonce, which over many signatures
can, via a lattice / Hidden Number Problem attack, lead to recovery of the
private key.
CWE: CWE-208: Observable Timing Discrepancy
Description: The generic elliptic-curve scalar multiplication used for
curves that do not have a dedicated constant-time implementation pads the
secret scalar with non-constant-time BIGNUM operations, so the time taken
depends on the value of the secret scalar derived from the ECDSA and SM2 nonce.
The leak is very small; observing it requires a large number of
measurements. The effect is largest for curves whose group order lies
on a machine-word boundary, such as brainpoolP384r1.
Applications using ECDSA signing over the Brainpool and other generic prime
curves, and SM2 signing on platforms that use the generic implementation,
are vulnerable to this issue.
The NIST curves P-256, P-384 and P-521 use dedicated constant-time
implementations and are not affected.
FIPS Impact: no
The FIPS modules are not affected: the approved NIST curves used in the FIPS
provider have dedicated constant-time implementations and do not use the
affected code path.
CWE: CWE-208: Observable Timing Discrepancy
CVSS Source: CISA ADP
CVSS Base score: 3.7
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)
CVEID: CVE-2026-75805
DESCRIPTION: Issue summary: A CMP client that requests certificate revocation on the basis
of a PKCS#10 CSR may dereference a NULL pointer and terminate abnormally when
processing a crafted revocation response.
Impact summary: The NULL pointer dereference happens on a read which
leads to a crash and a Denial of Service for the affected client application.
CWE: CWE-476: NULL-pointer dereference
Description: A CMP client revoking a certificate has to tell the server which
certificate to revoke, and may do so by supplying a PKCS#10 CSR instead of the
certificate itself or its issuer name and serial number. This is
'openssl cmp -cmd rr -csr file' on the command line, or
OSSL_CMP_exec_RR_ses() with the certificate supplied via
OSSL_CMP_CTX_set1_p10CSR() through the API.
A CSR does not contain the issuer name and serial number of the certificate,
so the client does not send them. A server may optionally name the
certificate it revoked in its response, and the client then compares that
name against what it sent. Having sent neither an issuer name nor a serial
number, it has nothing to compare against, and a server returning a specially
crafted name causes the client to read from a NULL pointer and crash.
The revocation response is checked for valid message protection before
the affected code is reached, so an attacker must be a malicious or
compromised CMP server, or a man-in-the-middle in possession of the
secret used for message protection. Clients that identify the certificate
to be revoked by a certificate or by issuer and serial number rather
than by a PKCS#10 CSR are not affected.
FIPS impact: no
No FIPS modules are affected by this issue, as the CMP protocol
implementation is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
CWE: CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference
CVSS Source: CISA ADP
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L)
CVEID: CVE-2026-75806
DESCRIPTION: Issue summary: An established DTLS 1.2 association using an AEAD cipher suite
can be terminated by a single unauthenticated datagram whose encrypted
fragment is shorter than the mandatory explicit IV and authentication tag
overhead.
Impact summary: An attacker who can send a datagram that is routed to an
existing DTLS 1.2 association can tear that association down without knowing
any key material. This is a Denial of Service limited to the targeted
association. There is no memory safety or confidentiality impact.
CWE: CWE-1284: Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input
Description: In TLS 1.2 and DTLS 1.2 every record protected by an AEAD cipher
suite carries an explicit IV followed by the ciphertext and an authentication
tag. When decrypting such a record the record layer passed the record length to
the cipher implementation before checking that the record was long enough to
contain the explicit IV and the tag. For a record shorter than that overhead the
cipher implementation rejected the impossible length, and the record layer
treated this as an internal failure and raised a fatal internal_error alert
instead of treating the record as one that failed authentication.
In TLS 1.2 the same record causes a fatal internal_error alert instead of the
expected bad_record_mac alert. Since any undecryptable record already
terminates a TLS connection, this is a protocol conformance issue rather than
a security issue in TLS.
The fix validates the record length against the explicit IV and tag length
before any AEAD processing, so that TLS reports bad_record_mac and DTLS
silently discards the record.
FIPS impact: no
The affected code is outside the FIPS module boundary.
CWE: CWE-1284: Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input
CVSS Source: CISA ADP
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L)
CVEID: CVE-2026-77696
DESCRIPTION: Issue summary: SM2 signature generation uses non-constant-time arithmetic
on secret values, forming a timing side-channel.
Impact summary: An attacker able to measure SM2 signing times may learn
information about the per-signature secret nonce, which over many signatures
can, via a lattice / Hidden Number Problem attack, lead to recovery of the
private key.
CWE: CWE-208: Observable Timing Discrepancy
Description: SM2 signature generation computes the signature value using
variable-time BIGNUM operations on the secret nonce and the private key, so
the time taken to produce an SM2 signature depends on these secret values,
forming a timing side-channel.
Applications performing SM2 signature generation are affected on all
platforms.
FIPS Impact: no
SM2 is not a FIPS algorithm.
CWE: CWE-208: Observable Timing Discrepancy
CVSS Source: CISA ADP
CVSS Base score: 3.7
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)
CVEID: CVE-2026-84782
DESCRIPTION: Issue summary: The DTLS retransmission logic does not correctly handle
a handshake message write that is suspended part-way through.
The retransmitted message can be read past the message buffer and
the retransmission overwrites the internal state the suspended write
needs to resume correctly.
Impact summary: The retransmitted message can disclose a heap memory
to the peer as plaintext handshake data or cause a crash and a Denial
of Service when the read reaches an unmapped memory region.
CWE: CWE-125: Out-of-bounds Read
Description: DTLS handshake messages can be written out in multiple
fragments, and a write can suspend mid-message (returning WANT_WRITE)
if the underlying transport temporarily cannot accept more data. While
such a write is suspended, the DTLS retransmission timer may
independently fire and ask the retransmission logic to resend an
earlier, already-acknowledged-as-sent message from its retransmit
queue.
The retransmission logic reused the same internal buffer and position
tracking as the message that was still being written, without
resetting the position back to the start of the message being
retransmitted. As a result the retransmission was read starting from
wherever the suspended write had left off, producing a mislabelled
message whose body was leftover bytes from the other, larger message
still in flight - content that was never meant to be sent at that
point, and which could run past the end of the allocated buffer.
Separately, even when the retransmission is positioned correctly,
allowing it to run to completion while another write is suspended
overwrites the same shared bookkeeping that the suspended write
depends on to resume. When the application later resumes the
suspended write (via a subsequent SSL_read(), SSL_write(),
SSL_accept(), or SSL_connect() call), it finds that bookkeeping in a
state inconsistent with the message and aborts the process in
a debugging build.
The fix resets the retransmission's read position to the start of the
message before resending, and skips retransmission entirely whenever a
handshake write is still suspended, deferring to the next call that
resumes it instead.
FIPS impact: no
The affected code is outside the FIPS module boundary.
CWE: CWE-125: Out-of-bounds Read
CVSS Source: CISA ADP
CVSS Base score: 8.2
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H)
Affected Products and Versions
| Affected Product(s) | Affected Product Version(s) | Affected Product Feature(s) or License Program Product(s) |
| IBM i | 7.6 | 5733-SC1 |
| IBM i | 7.5 | 5733-SC1 |
| IBM i | 7.4 | 5733-SC1 |
| IBM i | 7.3 | 5733-SC1 |
Remediation/Fixes
IBM recommends users running unsupported versions of affected products upgrade to a supported and fixed version of affected products.
Workarounds and Mitigations
None
Get Notified about Future Security Bulletins
References
Acknowledgement
Change History
23 Oct 2026: Initial Publication
*The CVSS Environment Score is customer environment specific and will ultimately impact the Overall CVSS Score. Customers can evaluate the impact of this vulnerability in their environments by accessing the links in the Reference section of this Security Bulletin.
Disclaimer
According to the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is an "industry open standard designed to convey vulnerability severity and help to determine urgency and priority of response." IBM PROVIDES THE CVSS SCORES ""AS IS"" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. CUSTOMERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ANY ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL SECURITY VULNERABILITY. In addition to other efforts to address potential vulnerabilities, IBM periodically updates the record of components contained in our product offerings. As part of that effort, if IBM identifies previously unidentified packages in a product/service inventory, we address relevant vulnerabilities regardless of CVE date. Inclusion of an older CVEID does not demonstrate that the referenced product has been used by IBM since that date, nor that IBM was aware of a vulnerability as of that date. We are making clients aware of relevant vulnerabilities as we become aware of them. "Affected Products and Versions" referenced in IBM Security Bulletins are intended to be only products and versions that are supported by IBM and have not passed their end-of-support or warranty date. Thus, failure to reference unsupported or extended-support products and versions in this Security Bulletin does not constitute a determination by IBM that they are unaffected by the vulnerability. Reference to one or more unsupported versions in this Security Bulletin shall not create an obligation for IBM to provide fixes for any unsupported or extended-support products or versions.
Document Location
Worldwide
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Document Information
Modified date:
23 October 2026
Initial Publish date:
23 October 2026
UID
ibm17293720