CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2026-28387 — Openssl Openssl security vulnerability

High CVSS 8.1

Issue summary: An uncommon configuration of clients performing DANE TLSA-based server authentication, when paired with uncommon server DANE TLSA records, may result in a use-after-free and/or double-free on the client side. Impact summary: A use after free can have a range of potential consequences such as the corruption of valid data, crashes or execution of arbitrary code. However, the issue only affects clients that make use of TLSA records with both the PKIX-TA(0/PKIX-EE(1) certificate usages and the DANE-TA(2) certificate usage. By far the most common deployment of DANE is in SMTP MTAs for which RFC7672 recommends that clients treat as 'unusable' any TLSA records that have the PKIX certificate usages. These SMTP (or other similar) clients are not vulnerable to this issue. Conversely, any clients that support only the PKIX usages, and ignore the DANE-TA(2) usage are also not vulnerable. The client would also need to be communicating with a server that publishes a TLSA RRset with both types of TLSA records. No FIPS modules are affected by this issue, the problem code is outside the FIPS module boundary.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.1 (3.1)
Published
2026-04-07
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-416

Affected products

  • openssl / openssl

Showing 1 representative product identities from 6 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Use-after-free, double free, and expired resource use

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace ownership, references, callbacks, asynchronous tasks, and teardown paths around the affected object or resource.
  • Identify reachable inputs and timing or state transitions that can release the object while references remain.
  • Confirm affected builds, allocators, feature flags, architectures, and process privileges.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained ownership or lifetime fix and rebuild all artifacts containing the affected native code.
  • Use explicit ownership, safe reference management, cancellation and join semantics, and idempotent teardown.
  • Add deterministic lifetime tests plus isolated sanitizer and concurrency coverage for shutdown and error paths.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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