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Libreswan EUVDEUVD-2026-41441

| CVE-2026-50721 MEDIUM
Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature (CWE-347)
2026-07-02 libreswan GHSA-93pj-2pmf-2x7p
5.9
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
Temporal: 7.5
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Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A04:2025 - Cryptographic Failures
ASVS 5.0
V11 - Cryptography Signature verification
This Month Plan within 30 days. Why: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9).
Patch available 0.4% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAIv3 – Jul 02, 2026

Signature forgery and denial-of-service in Libreswan's IKEv1 RSA authentication allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to impersonate an IKE peer or crash the daemon. The flaw lives in RSA_authenticate_hash_signature_raw_rsa(), which fails to validate the length of the authentication hash inside a PKCS #1 (RFC 2313) encoded SIG payload; when a peer uses a small RSA public exponent such as e=3, a Bleichenbacher-style forgery becomes feasible. There is no public exploit identified at time of analysis and it is not in CISA KEV, but the impersonation impact against IKEv1 raw-RSA authentication makes this a high-severity issue (CVSS 8.1); remote code execution is explicitly not possible and X.509 certificate verification is unaffected.

Earlier versions of this analysis (2)
v2 Jul 02, 2026 - 22:28 cvss changed CVSS 8.1

Signature-verification bypass in Libreswan's IKEv1 daemon lets remote attackers forge RSA-signed SIG payloads and impersonate IKE peers, or crash the daemon for denial of service. The flaw lives in RSA_authenticate_hash_signature_raw_rsa(), which fails to validate the authentication-hash length for PKCS #1 (RFC 2313) encoded signatures, enabling a Bleichenbacher-style forgery when peers use small RSA public exponents such as e=3. No public exploit is identified at time of analysis and the issue is not in CISA KEV, but it is unauthenticated and network-reachable; RCE is not possible and X.509 certificate verification is unaffected.

v1 Jul 02, 2026 - 22:16 CVSS 7.5

Denial-of-service and cryptographic impersonation in Libreswan's IKEv1 RSA authentication arise because RSA_authenticate_hash_signature_raw_rsa() fails to validate the length of the authentication hash in a PKCS #1 (RFC 2313) encoded SIG payload. Remote unauthenticated attackers can send a crafted IKEv1 packet with an undersized hash to trigger an assertion that aborts the daemon (which then restarts, enabling sustained DoS), and where peers use small RSA public exponents such as e=3 a Bleichenbacher-style signature forgery permits peer impersonation. There is no public exploit identified at time of analysis, no CISA KEV listing, and remote code execution is explicitly ruled out; X.509 certificate verification is unaffected.

Affected VersionsENISA

libreswan 0 ≤5.3

Affected Packages

euvd libreswan no fix

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)

Affects your stack

Affects 1 package in euvd

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  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

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Severity by source

Vendor (libreswan) PRIMARY HIGH
NVD 5.9 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CIRCL (temporal) 7.5 HIGH
SUSE HIGH
Red Hat 7.5 MEDIUM

Primary rating from Vendor (libreswan).

CVSS VectorNVD

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
High
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

3
Severity Changed
Jul 09, 2026 - 15:52 NVD
HIGH MEDIUM
CVSS changed
Jul 09, 2026 - 15:52 NVD
8.1 (HIGH) 5.9 (MEDIUM)
CVSS changed
Jul 02, 2026 - 22:22 NVD
7.5 (HIGH) 8.1 (HIGH)

DescriptionNVD

Libreswan, via the function RSA_authenticate_hash_signature_raw_rsa(), did not correctly verify the length of the authentication hash when the SIG payload of an IKEv1 packet was encoded using PKCS #1 RSA Encryption as per RFC 2313. A remote attacker can use a variation on the Bleichenbacher attack to forge the SIG payload when small public exponents are being used (e.g., e=3), which could lead to impersonation. Additionally, a remote attacker, by encoding a shorter than expected hash in the SIG 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 remote IKE peers are not affected.

Executive ViewAI

Why It Matters

Libreswan deployments face a critical authentication bypass vulnerability in their IKEv1 protocol stack (CVE-2026-50721, CVSS 8.1) that could allow adversaries to hijack encrypted connections without detection; no public exploit identified at time of analysis. Organizations operating Libreswan-based VPN infrastructure should treat this as a potential man-in-the-middle risk against their network perimeter security, though X.509 certificate pinning policies provide a secondary control layer.

Recommended Action

Within 24 hours: Inventory all systems running Libreswan and document current version and IKEv1 configuration status, particularly any deployments using raw-RSA authentication. Within 7 days: Apply the vendor-released patch to all affected Libreswan installations. Within 30 days: Verify patch deployment across the entire infrastructure footprint and enable enhanced logging of IKE negotiations to detect any anomalous authentication attempts.

Business Impact: High
Compensating Controls

Apply vendor patch.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.4%
Top 71% exploitable
Social Media
2
Sightings
Data Quality
5 sources
Confidence: Medium

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity MEDIUM
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.4%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision
Scheduled
Exploitation
None
System Exposure· derived
Open
Automatable
Yes
Human Impact
High
Technical Impact
Partial

Priority Score

30
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +30
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Remote Code Execution represents the critical moment when an attacker successfully runs arbitrary code on a target system without physical access.

Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.

CVE-2013-7283 CRITICAL POC
9.3 Jan 09

Race condition in the libreswan.spec files for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora packages in libreswan 3.6 has

CVE-2019-12312 HIGH POC
7.5 May 24

In Libreswan 3.27 an assertion failure can lead to a pluto IKE daemon restart. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vuln

CVE-2023-23009 MEDIUM POC
6.5 Feb 21

Libreswan 4.9 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (assert failure and daemon restart) via crafted TS pa

CVE-2013-7294 MEDIUM POC
5.0 Jan 16

The ikev2parent_inI1outR1 function in pluto/ikev2_parent.c in libreswan before 3.7 allows remote attackers to cause a de

CVE-2016-3071 HIGH
7.5 Apr 18

Libreswan 3.16 might allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon restart) via an IKEv2 aes_xcbc transfor

CVE-2016-5361 HIGH
7.5 Jun 16

programs/pluto/ikev1.c in libreswan before 3.17 retransmits in initial-responder states, which allows remote attackers t

CVE-2016-5391 HIGH
7.5 Jun 13

libreswan before 3.18 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and pluto daemon re

CVE-2026-12413 HIGH
7.5 Jul 02

Denial of service in the Libreswan IPsec VPN's pluto daemon allows remote unauthenticated attackers to crash and repeate

CVE-2026-14957 HIGH
7.5 Sep 02

Unauthenticated remote denial of service in Libreswan's pluto IKE daemon allows any network attacker to repeatedly crash

CVE-2023-30570 HIGH
7.5 May 29

pluto in Libreswan before 4.11 allows a denial of service (responder SPI mishandling and daemon crash) via unauthenticat

CVE-2023-2295 HIGH
7.5 May 17

A vulnerability was found in the libreswan library. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely explo

CVE-2020-1763 HIGH
7.5 May 12

An out-of-bounds buffer read flaw was found in the pluto daemon of libreswan from versions 3.27 till 3.31 where, an unau

Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Important
Product Status
SUSE Liberty Linux 10 Fixed
SUSE Liberty Linux 8 Fixed
SUSE Liberty Linux 9 Fixed

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