Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
-
AccessCraft certificate lacking key-flags subpacket
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DeliveryDeliver certificate to victim application
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ExploitLibrary misinfers key flags
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ExecutionBack-signature check bypassed
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PersistBind rogue subkey, forge signatures
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ImpactMalicious signature accepted as valid
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A04:2025 - Cryptographic Failures
ASVS 5.0
V11 - Cryptography Signature verification
|
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation specifically requires an OpenPGP certificate that is missing a key-flags subpacket (the legacy/older-certificate code path); the library then incorrectly infers key flags, producing the key-flag confusion that bypasses the back-signature check and permits binding an arbitrary subkey. The victim system must actually process and verify the attacker-supplied certificate with sequoia-openpgp (UI:R), which is the main limiting factor - there is no default remote-service exposure. No authentication is required (PR:N). Any application relying on this library for OpenPGP signature verification is exposed once it ingests the crafted certificate. |
| Impact | This is a cryptographic signature-verification bypass (CWE-347) in the sequoia-openpgp library. The provided CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:N, base 7.4) is internally coherent: no privileges required, low complexity, but user interaction is needed (a victim application/user must process the attacker-supplied certificate), and scope is changed because the library's flawed trust decision propagates to the relying application. Impact is integrity-only (I:H) - forged/illegitimately-bound signatures - with no confidentiality or availability impact, which matches the description. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public POC are present in the supplied data, so exploitation is: no public exploit identified at time of analysis. This is a genuine correctness/integrity flaw in a security-critical primitive (signature verification), so it is a real priority for any deployment that verifies OpenPGP certificates with this library, but the lack of active-exploitation or POC signals and the UI:R requirement mean it is not an urgent mass-exploitation threat. The 'Jwt Attack' tag is incorrect and misleading - this is OpenPGP, not JWT - and should not factor into triage. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker crafts a malicious OpenPGP certificate that lacks a key-flags subpacket (as older certificates do), causing sequoia-openpgp to infer key capabilities incorrectly and skip the back-signature check. The attacker binds an arbitrary subkey to their own certificate and presents it to a victim system that verifies signatures with the library, which then accepts forged signatures as valid. No public exploit code is identified at this time; exploitation requires the victim to process the attacker's certificate (UI:R). |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Sep 16, 2026
Signature forgery in Sequoia OpenPGP (sequoia-openpgp) stems from incorrect key-flag inference for legacy OpenPGP certificates that lack a key-flags subpacket, letting an unauthenticated remote attacker bypass the back-signature check and bind an arbitrary subkey to their own certificate. This compromises cryptographic integrity for any application that uses the library to verify untrusted certificates, although exploitation requires the victim to process a crafted certificate (UI:R). No public exploit code or CISA KEV entry was identified in the provided data.
RemediationAI
No vendor-released patch was identified at time of analysis. Until a fix is available, applications should avoid verifying untrusted OpenPGP certificates with sequoia-openpgp; if that is not possible, add strict pre-validation that rejects any certificate lacking an explicit key-flags subpacket before processing, accepting that this may break interoperability with legitimate older certificates. Monitor the Red Hat advisory at https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-42784 and the Bugzilla report at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2464122 for a patched version. A compensating control is to perform independent back-signature verification with a different OpenPGP implementation before trusting a subkey binding, though this adds complexity and potential performance overhead.
Affected ProductsAI
The affected product is the sequoia-openpgp library used to parse and verify OpenPGP certificates. No CPE strings or exact version ranges were supplied in the available intelligence; Red Hat tracks the issue at https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-42784 and a bug report exists at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2464122. Applications that embed sequoia-openpgp for certificate validation, including those that process certificates missing a key-flags subpacket, are exposed.
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Technical ContextAI · show details
OpenPGP certificates use key flags subpackets within self-signatures to declare capabilities such as certify, sign, encrypt, or authenticate, and a back-signature (subkey binding signature) cryptographically ties each subkey to the primary key. CVE-2026-42784 is a CWE-347 improper verification of cryptographic signature flaw in sequoia-openpgp: when an older certificate omits the key-flags subpacket, the library incorrectly infers key flags instead of safely rejecting or handling the absence. This inference discrepancy causes the back-signature check to be bypassed, so an attacker can illegitimately bind an arbitrary subkey to their own certificate and forge signatures. The root cause is in the certificate verification path that handles legacy certificates, and any application that relies on sequoia-openpgp for OpenPGP signature verification is exposed once it ingests such a crafted certificate.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:N
Certificate is network-delivered (AV:N) and unauthenticated (PR:N) but must be processed by the victim (UI:R); flawed verification propagates to the relying application (S:C) with integrity-only impact (I:H, C:N/A:N).
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Primary rating from Vendor (redhat).
CVSS VectorVendor: redhat
DescriptionCVE.org
A flaw was found in sequoia-openpgp. The library incorrectly infers key flags for older certificates when a key flags subpacket is missing, leading to a discrepancy in how key capabilities are viewed. This key flag confusion allows an attacker to bypass the back-signature check. Consequently, an attacker can illegitimately bind an arbitrary subkey to their own certificate and forge signatures, completely compromising cryptographic integrity.
Executive ViewAI
A HIGH-severity signature-forgery flaw in the Sequoia OpenPGP library (sequoia-openpgp) lets a crafted certificate bypass the back-signature check and bind an attacker-controlled subkey to a legitimate certificate, undermining the cryptographic trust decisions made by any application that validates untrusted OpenPGP keys. Because Sequoia is a widely embedded library, exposure may extend well beyond teams that deploy it directly into third-party products and internal tooling. No vendor patch is available at this time, so leadership should treat this as an unmitigated integrity risk requiring immediate inventory and interim verification controls.
No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis. Interim mitigations: disable or sandbox verification of untrusted OpenPGP certificates where business processes allow; enforce a strict allowlist of trusted keys and fingerprints rather than accepting arbitrary certificates; reject legacy OpenPGP certificates that lack a key-flags subpacket; add an independent back-signature/fingerprint validation step using a separate PGP implementation; and monitor the upstream Sequoia advisory channel for the eventual patched release and deploy it on an expedited timeline.
Threat Intelligence Overview
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.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
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Same technique Authentication Bypass
View allVendor StatusVendor
SUSE
Severity: Moderate| Product | Status |
|---|---|
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.0 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.1 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.0 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.1 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 16.0 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Enterprise Storage 7.1 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP3 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3-ESPOS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP3 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP3 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3-BCL | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP3 | Affected |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2 | Affected |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.2 | Affected |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.2 | Affected |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.3 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.3 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.4 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.5 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | Not-Affected |
EUVD-2026-80888
GHSA-g33h-rrj9-75qv
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
VulDB
Exploit-DB