CVE-2022-3996
Published: August 31, 2023Last modified: July 22, 2025
Description
If an X.509 certificate contains a malformed policy constraint and policy processing is enabled, then a write lock will be taken twice recursively. On some operating systems (most widely: Windows) this results in a denial of service when the affected process hangs. Policy processing being enabled on a publicly facing server is not considered to be a common setup. Policy processing is enabled by passing the `-policy' argument to the command line utilities or by calling the `X509_VERIFY_PARAM_set1_policies()' function. Update (31 March 2023): The description of the policy processing enablement was corrected based on CVE-2023-0466.
Severity score breakdown
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Base score | 7.5 |
| Attack Vector | NETWORK |
| Attack complexity | LOW |
| Privileges required | NONE |
| User interaction | NONE |
| Scope | UNCHANGED |
| Confidentiality | NONE |
| Integrity impact | NONE |
| Availability impact | HIGH |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
Status
| Product | Release | Package | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpaquita Linux | 23 LTS | openssl | Not affected (3.0.10-r0) |
| Stream | openssl | Not affected (3.1.2-r0) | |
| Hardened Containers | 23 LTS | openssl | Not affected (3.0.10-r0) |
| Stream | openssl | Not affected (3.1.2-r0) |