CVE-2026-42791
Description
Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability in Erlang OTP public_key (pubkey_ocsp module) allows forged OCSP responses signed with an expired responder certificate to be accepted as valid. OCSP response verification in pubkey_ocsp:verify_response/5 and pubkey_ocsp:is_authorized_responder/3 in lib/public_key/src/pubkey_ocsp.erl does not check the validity period (notBefore/notAfter) of the OCSP responder certificate. An attacker who has obtained the private key of an expired CA-designated OCSP responder certificate can forge OCSP responses that Erlang/OTP accepts as valid. This affects TLS clients using OCSP stapling via the ssl application: a malicious or compromised server can present a revoked TLS certificate together with a forged OCSP response signed by an expired responder key, and the client will accept the revoked certificate as valid. It also affects applications calling public_key:pkix_ocsp_validate/5 directly, where the impact depends on the use case — server-side client certificate validation using this API may allow authentication bypass with a revoked client certificate. This issue affects OTP from OTP 27.0 before OTP 27.3.4.12, 28.5.0.1, and 29.0.1 corresponding to public_key from 1.16 before 1.17.1.3, 1.20.3.1, and 1.21.1.
How to fix CVE-2026-42791
No fixed version has been published yet. Mitigate by removing the affected package or applying upstream guidance from the references below.
- —no fix listed
Is CVE-2026-42791 being exploited?
Low — EPSS is 0.1%, meaning exploitation activity has not been observed at scale.
Affected packages (1)
- from 0
CVSS scores
| Source | Version | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| osv | CVSS 4.0 | — | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X |
| osv | CVSS 3.1 | LOW3.7 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N |