CVE-2026-81689
Medium
Elevated severity or exploit probability.
CVSS base
7.5
HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS — probability of exploitation (30 days)
0.2%
9.9th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness / dates
CWE-916
Published 2026-08-27 · modified 2026-09-03
CVSS breakdown
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
| Attack Vector | N | Network |
| Attack Complexity | L | Low |
| Privileges Required | N | None |
| User Interaction | N | None |
| Scope | U | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | H | High |
| Integrity | N | None |
| Availability | N | None |
Timeline
- 2026-08-27 — Published (NVD)
- 2026-09-03 — Last modified (NVD)
Description
openssl_encrypt versions before 1.4.9 derive the remote-pepper wrap key using unsalted HKDF-SHA256 or bare SHA-256 of the password, allowing identical keys across all users and files. Attackers with access to wrapped pepper blobs can precompute a single dictionary table and perform fleet-wide offline password guessing at hardware speed to recover user passwords.