CVE-2026-63075

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.

References

• https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/7308946576b12e64b8be53bcf0a120354b2b42bc
• https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/7c98d79738549df92868e7dd9be4bbf061eed709
• https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/bf84721c2548351176e367e6de505792f0118dc6
• https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/c902e5f16d6a9e130e96d3ca6d8f64d71652e393
• https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260825.txt