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CVE-2026-14457: RPK Server Signature Algorithm Selection Can Dereference a Missing Certificate

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 1.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-08-25 · updated 2026-09-11
• Weakness: CWE-476

Description

Issue summary: In a server or client configuration with RFC7250 Raw Public Keys (RPKs) enabled, and only the private key (with no associated certificate) configured locally, a NULL pointer dereference may occur when the remote peer solicits raw public keys and also sends the typically omitted "signature_algorithms_cert" TLS extension. Impact summary: The impact is limited to a possible Denial of Service as a result of an application abort, no data disclosure or remote command execution are possible. CWE: CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference Description: While a passing comment in sample code in the documentation suggests that key-only RPK configurations are supported, the best-practice RPK configuration is to always configure a corresponding certificate (possibly self-signed or signed by any convenient CA). When the private key is configured along with a matching certificate, the "signature_algorithms_cert" extension is handled reliably even without the fix, and peer clients or servers that don't support raw public keys may be able to complete a TLS connection by pinning or verifying the corresponding certificate or its public key. Deployments that prefer to configure just a private key with no certificate need to upgrade to an updated release as noted below. FIPS impact: no No FIPS modules are affected by this issue, as the SSL protocol implementation is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.

Affected products

• OpenSSL: from 3.4.0 before 3.4.7; from 3.5.0 before 3.5.8; from 3.6.0 before 3.6.4; from 4.0.0 before 4.0.2 — fixed in 3.4.7, 3.5.8, 3.6.4, 4.0.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: OpenSSL 3.4.7, 3.5.8, 3.6.4, 4.0.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/1e8c398db67404babd3e5af999bb6bd86f720c76
• https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/581aaa0f0a35d214740f0fe1f5283ec41f1212e1
• https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/d0af20478688a6aa2f59d61caa3f82136b181d7f
• https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/dad836b071da6579510c968615848ba03cac593b
• https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260825.txt

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