Skip to content
OpenAdvisories
High · 7.5 CVE-2026-63075 EUVD-2026-65485GHSA-cj75-r57j-r5v8

QUIC ACK-only Packet Retention Can Cause Memory Exhaustion

Published Aug 25, 2026 · Updated Aug 25, 2026 · Assigned by openssl

Description

Issue summary: When OpenSSL processes QUIC traffic from a peer that repeatedly
sends ack-eliciting packets while not acknowledging ACK-only responses, the
QUIC stack can retain ACK-only packet metadata for the lifetime of the
connection.

Impact summary: A remote peer that can complete a QUIC handshake can
cause connection-scoped memory growth which may lead to Denial of Service
through memory exhaustion, especially with sustained traffic or many concurrent
QUIC connections.

CWE: CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

Description: When the OpenSSL QUIC stack sends an ACK-only packet,
there is no requirement by the QUIC protocol that the peer will acknowledge
that ACK-only packet (i.e. it is itself not ack-eliciting). However, the OpenSSL
implementation stores the metadata about the ACK frames regardless.
In and of itself that's ok, but if a malicious peer establishes a connection, and
then drives the connection such that ACK-only packets are forced from the
OpenSSL implementation peer (i.e., by sending numerous PING frames),
and then withholding any subsequent acks for ack-eliciting data, like
legitimate data, said malicious peer can force inappropriate memory growth
on the OpenSSL peer, potentially leading to a Denial of Service.

The fix is to ensure that we account for the transmission of the ACK-only
packet in the packet histories high and low watermark without actually storing
the ACK-only packet metadata itself.

FIPS impact: no
The OpenSSL FIPS module is not affected as the QUIC code is
outside the FIPS module boundary.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
OpenSSL OpenSSL 4.0.0 – < 4.0.2, 3.6.0 – < 3.6.4, 3.5.0 – < 3.5.8, 3.4.0 – < 3.4.7 4.0.2

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 openssl 3.6.4-1 —
Debian 13 openssl 3.5.7-1~deb13u2 —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 edk2 +1 No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS edk2 +1 No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS openssl 3.5.5-1ubuntu3.4 USN-8678-1
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS openssl 3.0.13-0ubuntu3.15 USN-8678-1
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS openssl 3.0.2-0ubuntu1.29 USN-8678-1
Show 2 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS nodejs No fix yet —
Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS nodejs No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
RHEL 10 openssl +3 1:3.5.8-1.el10_2 RHSA-2026:67154
RHEL 9 openssl +3 1:3.5.8-1.el9_8 RHSA-2026:67165
Show 1 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat Hardened Images 1 openssl +10 1:3.5.8-0.1.hum1 RHSA-2026:59641, RHSA-2026:59635

AlmaLinux

Errata ↗
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
AlmaLinux 10 openssl +3 1:3.5.8-1.el10_2.alma.1 ALSA-2026:67154
AlmaLinux 9 openssl +3 1:3.5.8-1.el9_8 ALSA-2026:67165

Rocky Linux

Errata ↗
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Rocky Linux 10 openssl 1:3.5.8-1.el10_2 RLSA-2026:67154
Rocky Linux 9 openssl 1:3.5.8-1.el9_8 RLSA-2026:67165
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLES 15 SP7 openssl-3 3.5.0-150700.5.50.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4039-1
Show 3 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLES for SAP 16.0 openssl-3 3.5.0-160000.10.1 SUSE-SU-2026:23609-1
SLES 16.0 openssl-3 3.5.0-160000.10.1 SUSE-SU-2026:23609-1
SLE Micro 6.2 openssl-3 3.5.0-160000.10.1 SUSE-SU-2026:23463-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Tumbleweed openssl-3 3.5.3-8.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:11623-1
openSUSE Leap 16.0 openssl-3 3.5.0-160000.10.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:21744-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Alpine v3.24 openssl 3.5.8-r0 —
Alpine v3.23 openssl 3.5.8-r0 —
Alpine v3.22 openssl 3.5.8-r0 —

Amazon Linux

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Amazon Linux 2023 openssl +5 1:3.5.8-1.amzn2023.0.1 ALAS2023-2026-2136

Azure Linux

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Azure Linux 3 openssl 3.3.7-6 —

Wolfi

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Wolfi rolling openssl-4.0 +2 4.0.2-r0 —

Advisories 18

References