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Medium · 6.3 CVE-2026-42791 EUVD-2026-32273

OCSP responder certificate validity period not checked in public_key

Published May 27, 2026 · Updated Nov 11, 2026 · Assigned by EEF

Description

Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability in Erlang OTP public_key (pubkey_ocsp module) allows forged OCSP responses signed with an expired responder certificate to be accepted as valid.

OCSP response verification in pubkey_ocsp:verify_response/5 and pubkey_ocsp:is_authorized_responder/3 in lib/public_key/src/pubkey_ocsp.erl does not check the validity period (notBefore/notAfter) of the OCSP responder certificate. An attacker who has obtained the private key of an expired CA-designated OCSP responder certificate can forge OCSP responses that Erlang/OTP accepts as valid.

This affects TLS clients using OCSP stapling via the ssl application: a malicious or compromised server can present a revoked TLS certificate together with a forged OCSP response signed by an expired responder key, and the client will accept the revoked certificate as valid. It also affects applications calling public_key:pkix_ocsp_validate/5 directly, where the impact depends on the use case — server-side client certificate validation using this API may allow authentication bypass with a revoked client certificate.

This issue affects OTP from OTP 27.0 before OTP 27.3.4.12, OTP 28.5.0.1, and OTP 29.0.1, corresponding to public_key from 1.16 before 1.17.1.3, 1.20.3.1, and 1.21.1.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
Erlang OTP 27.0, 1.16 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 erlang 1:27.3.4.12+dfsg-1 —
Debian 13 erlang 1:27.3.4.1+dfsg-1+deb13u3 —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS erlang 1:27.3.4.6+dfsg-1ubuntu0.2 USN-8901-1
Ubuntu 25.10 erlang No fix yet —
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS erlang 1:25.3.2.8+dfsg-1ubuntu4.8 USN-8901-1
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS erlang 1:24.2.1+dfsg-1ubuntu0.8 USN-8901-1
Show 4 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS erlang 1:22.2.7+dfsg-1ubuntu0.5+esm3 USN-8901-1
Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS erlang 1:20.2.2+dfsg-1ubuntu2+esm4 USN-8901-1
Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS erlang 1:18.3-dfsg-1ubuntu3.1+esm4 USN-8901-1
Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS erlang 1:16.b.3-dfsg-1ubuntu2.2+esm3 USN-8901-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat Hardened Images 1 erlang27 +38 27.3.4.17-1.hum1 RHSA-2026:63160
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLES for SAP 16.0 erlang 27.1.3-160000.5.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22082-1
SLES 16.0 erlang 27.1.3-160000.5.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22082-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Tumbleweed erlang 28.5.0.4-1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:11559-1
openSUSE Tumbleweed erlang27 27.1.3-2.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:10947-1
openSUSE Leap 16.0 erlang 27.1.3-160000.5.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:20907-1

Advisories 7

References