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.

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Advisories

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Fixes

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/


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.

History

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 22:00:00 +0000

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'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: libreswan

Published:

Updated: 2026-07-02T21:34:41.413Z

Reserved: 2026-06-05T16:10:05.751Z

Link: CVE-2026-50722

cve-icon Vulnrichment

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cve-icon NVD

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cve-icon Redhat

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cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-07-03T10:00:12Z

Weaknesses