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High 7.5Published Dec 13, 2022

CVE-2022-3996If an X.509 certificate contains a malformed policy constraint and policy processing is enabled, then a write lock will be taken twice recursively.

Updated under an hour ago ()

Does this affect you?

It affects openssl. Add what you run to find out whether that includes you.

No exploitation reported and no EPSS estimate yet.

If an X.509 certificate contains a malformed policy constraint and policy processing is enabled, then a write lock will be taken twice recursively. On some operating systems (most widely: Windows) this results in a denial of service when the affected process hangs. Policy processing being enabled on a publicly facing server is not considered to be a common setup. Policy processing is enabled by passing the `-policy' argument to the command line utilities or by calling the `X509_VERIFY_PARAM_set1_policies()' function. Update (31 March 2023): The description of the policy processing enablement was corrected based on CVE-2023-0466.

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CVSS
7.5 HIGH (v3.1, NVD)CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-667
Known exploited
Not in CISA's KEV catalog
EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)
Not loaded for this CVE
Assigned by
Not given
NVD analysis
Modified
Record last updated
Jun 17, 2026
First seen by InfoSec Signals
Nov 1, 2026

Affected products

Affected products
openssl openssl
openssl:openssl
from 3.0.0 through 3.0.7
NVD

References

References

The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.

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