CVE-2026-50722

IKEv2 Denial of Service via RSA-SHA1 (PKCS#1 RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5) authentication payload

Published Jul 2, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 8.1 High EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Libreswan, via the function RSA_authenticate_hash_signature_pkcs1_1_5_rsa(), did not correctly verify the DER encoding of the ASN.1 digest when the IKEv2 AUTH payload was encoded using RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 (RFC 8017). A remote attacker can use a variation on the Bleichenbacher attack to forge the AUTH payload when small public exponents are used (e.g., e=3), leading to impersonation. Additionally, a remote attacker, by encoding a shorter than expected hash in the AUTH payload, could trigger an assertion leading to denial-of-service. The daemon aborts and restarts; continued exploitation causes sustained denial of service. Remote code execution is not possible. X.509 certificate verifications of the remote IKE peer are not affected.

Remediation

Vendor Solution

Upgrade to libreswan 5.3.1 or later. Patches for libreswan 4.15 and 5.3 are available at https://libreswan.org/security/CVE-2026-50722/


Vendor Workaround

If Windows support is not needed, configure authby=ecdsa or authby=rsa-sha2 (or both via authby=ecdsa,rsa-sha2) to disallow the fallback of RSA PKCS#1 1.5. The leftauth= and rightauth= settings can be updated similarly if those are in use instead of authby.

Tracking

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Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Libreswan
Libreswan libreswan
Vendors & Products Libreswan
Libreswan libreswan
Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Libreswan, via the function RSA_authenticate_hash_signature_pkcs1_1_5_rsa(), did not correctly verify the DER encoding of the ASN.1 digest when the IKEv2 AUTH payload was encoded using RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 (RFC 8017). A remote attacker can use a variation on the Bleichenbacher attack to forge the AUTH payload when small public exponents are used (e.g., e=3), leading to impersonation. Additionally, a remote attacker, by encoding a shorter than expected hash in the AUTH payload, could trigger an assertion leading to denial-of-service. The daemon aborts and restarts; continued exploitation causes sustained denial of service. Remote code execution is not possible. X.509 certificate verifications of the remote IKE peer are not affected.
Title IKEv2 Denial of Service via RSA-SHA1 (PKCS#1 RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5) authentication payload
Weaknesses CWE-347
CWE-617
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 8.1, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
libreswan
Published
Updated
Jul 7, 2026, 5:02 PM
Reserved
Jun 5, 2026, 4:10 PM
Status
Analyzed
Published
Jul 2, 2026, 10:16 PM
Modified
Oct 25, 2026, 9:10 PM
Severity
Moderate
Public date
Jun 24, 2026, 12:00 AM