CVE-2026-45271

MEDIUM CVSS 3.1: 5.5 EPSS 0.11%
Updated Aug 22, 2026
H2O
Parameter Value
CVSS 5.5 (MEDIUM)
Type CWE-835
Vendor H2O
Public PoC No

Picotls is a TLS protocol library that allows users select different crypto backends based on their use case. Picotls implements its own ASN.1 validation helper, which is used by the minicrypto backend while parsing local PKCS#8 private keys. Prior to commit c14231d801407640bc42c2dcf92783409ea6a7c7, the validator recursively descends into constructed ASN.1 elements without enforcing a maximum nesting depth.

If an application loads an attacker-supplied private-key file through ptls_minicrypto_load_private_key(), or otherwise calls the public ASN.1 validation API on untrusted DER, a crafted deeply nested ASN.1 structure can exhaust the process stack and crash the application. Note that the libcrypto (OpenSSL) backend does not use the ASN.1 validation helper of picotls, and therefore is immune to this vulnerability. The vulnerability has been addressed in commit c14231d801407640bc42c2dcf92783409ea6a7c7.

Attack Parameters

Attack Vector
Local
Requires local access
Attack Complexity
Low
Easy to exploit
Privileges Required
None
No privileges needed
User Interaction
Required
User action required

Impact Assessment

Confidentiality
None
No data leak
Integrity
None
No data modification
Availability
High
Complete denial of service

CVSS Vector v3.1

Weakness Type (CWE)

Vulnerable Products

h2o:picotls