Issue summary: When a delta CRL that contains a Delta CRL Indicator extension
is processed a NULL pointer dereference might happen if the required CRL
Number extension is missing.

Impact summary: A NULL pointer dereference can trigger a crash which
leads to a Denial of Service for an application.

When CRL processing and delta CRL processing is enabled during X.509
certificate verification, the delta CRL processing does not check
whether the CRL Number extension is NULL before dereferencing it.
When a malformed delta CRL file is being processed, this parameter
can be NULL, causing a NULL pointer dereference.

Exploiting this issue requires the X509_V_FLAG_USE_DELTAS flag to be enabled in
the verification context, the certificate being verified to contain a
freshestCRL extension or the base CRL to have the EXFLAG_FRESHEST flag set, and
an attacker to provide a malformed CRL to an application that processes it.

The vulnerability is limited to Denial of Service and cannot be escalated to
achieve code execution or memory disclosure. For that reason the issue was
assessed as Low severity according to our Security Policy.

The FIPS modules in 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue,
as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.

Project Subscriptions

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Debian DSA Debian DSA DSA-6201-1 openssl security update
Fixes

Solution

No solution given by the vendor.


Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 22:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Issue summary: When a delta CRL that contains a Delta CRL Indicator extension is processed a NULL pointer dereference might happen if the required CRL Number extension is missing. Impact summary: A NULL pointer dereference can trigger a crash which leads to a Denial of Service for an application. When CRL processing and delta CRL processing is enabled during X.509 certificate verification, the delta CRL processing does not check whether the CRL Number extension is NULL before dereferencing it. When a malformed delta CRL file is being processed, this parameter can be NULL, causing a NULL pointer dereference. Exploiting this issue requires the X509_V_FLAG_USE_DELTAS flag to be enabled in the verification context, the certificate being verified to contain a freshestCRL extension or the base CRL to have the EXFLAG_FRESHEST flag set, and an attacker to provide a malformed CRL to an application that processes it. The vulnerability is limited to Denial of Service and cannot be escalated to achieve code execution or memory disclosure. For that reason the issue was assessed as Low severity according to our Security Policy. The FIPS modules in 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue, as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
Title NULL Pointer Dereference When Processing a Delta CRL
Weaknesses CWE-476
References

Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: openssl

Published:

Updated: 2026-04-07T22:00:52.382Z

Reserved: 2026-02-27T13:45:02.161Z

Link: CVE-2026-28388

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-04-07T22:16:20.863

Modified: 2026-04-07T22:16:20.863

Link: CVE-2026-28388

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses