High CVSS 7.5
CVE-2026-74888
NVD analysis in progress
openssl_encrypt versions before 1.4.0 use a non-standard PBKDF2 key derivation construction with iterations=1 per call in an outer loop, creating a KDF whose security properties have not been formally analyzed. Attackers can exploit this weakened key derivation to more efficiently crack passwords protecting legacy encrypted files compared to standard PBKDF2 implementations.
What this means
- Exposure
- Exploitable remotely over the network, without authentication and with no action from the victim.
- Impact
- An attacker can read sensitive data.
- Weakness
- The cryptographic algorithm in use is broken or obsolete.
- Likelihood
- Its EPSS score stays low: nothing points to imminent exploitation, which is no reason to leave it unpatched.
What to doFold into the next patch cycle. Start with the instances exposed to the internet.
Read automatically from the CVSS vector, the weakness type (CWE) and the EPSS score. The technical description above remains the one published by NIST.