GHSA-9v9h-cgj8-h64p CVE-2024-0727 PYSEC-2026-1285

Null pointer dereference in PKCS12 parsing

Medium PyPI

Severity: 5.5 / 10; Medium · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS): 3.19%; Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 88.09% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited: No; Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness: CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference
Fix: 42.0.2; Upgrade cryptography to this version or later

Description

Issue summary: Processing a maliciously formatted PKCS12 file may lead OpenSSL to crash leading to a potential Denial of Service attack

Impact summary: Applications loading files in the PKCS12 format from untrusted sources might terminate abruptly.

A file in PKCS12 format can contain certificates and keys and may come from an untrusted source. The PKCS12 specification allows certain fields to be NULL, but OpenSSL does not correctly check for this case. This can lead to a NULL pointer dereference that results in OpenSSL crashing. If an application processes PKCS12 files from an untrusted source using the OpenSSL APIs then that application will be vulnerable to this issue.

OpenSSL APIs that are vulnerable to this are: PKCS12_parse(), PKCS12_unpack_p7data(), PKCS12_unpack_p7encdata(), PKCS12_unpack_authsafes() and PKCS12_newpass().

We have also fixed a similar issue in SMIME_write_PKCS7(). However since this function is related to writing data we do not consider it security significant.

The FIPS modules in 3.2, 3.1 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue.

Affected versions

PyPI

Package	Vulnerable	Fixed in
cryptography	`< 42.0.2`	`42.0.2`
cryptography	`< 42.0.2`	`42.0.2`

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

cryptography PyPI → `42.0.2`

pip

pip install --upgrade "cryptography>=42.0.2"

poetry

poetry add "cryptography>=42.0.2"

uv

uv add "cryptography>=42.0.2"

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 5.5

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack vector: Local
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: None
User interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Weakness

CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference

The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.

How to prevent it

Implementation: For any pointers that could have been modified or provided from a function that can return NULL, check the pointer for NULL before use. When working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the check, and unlock when it has finished [REF-1484].
Requirements: Select a programming language that is not susceptible to these issues.
Implementation: Check the results of all functions that return a value and verify that the value is non-null before acting upon it.
Architecture and Design: Identify all variables and data stores that receive information from external sources, and apply input validation to make sure that they are only initialized to expected values.
Implementation: Explicitly initialize all variables and other data stores, either during declaration or just before the first usage.

References

Advisories

Fixes and patches

Packages

pypi.org/project/cryptography

Timeline

Jan 26, 2024 Published
Oct 15, 2026 Last updated by the source
Nov 1, 2026 Latest EPSS score

Advisory	Severity	Why it's related
GHSA-m2h6-j472-rp4c python-cryptography verifier accepts wildcard DNS names allowing escape from permittedSubtrees	Medium	Also affects cryptography
GHSA-jwv3-5hgf-82ww python-cryptography: Duplicate self-signed intermediates can cause exponential path-building	High	Also affects cryptography
GHSA-g6cj-pr64-35w5 cryptography: PKCS#7 EnvelopedData decryption exposes a Bleichenbacher oracle through distinguishable errors and timing	High	Also affects cryptography
GHSA-537c-gmf6-5ccf Vulnerable OpenSSL included in cryptography wheels	High	Also affects cryptography
GHSA-p423-j2cm-9vmq Cryptography vulnerable to buffer overflow if non-contiguous buffers were passed to APIs	Medium	Also affects cryptography
GHSA-m959-cc7f-wv43 cryptography has incomplete DNS name constraint enforcement on peer names	Low	Also affects cryptography
GHSA-r6ph-v2qm-q3c2 cryptography Vulnerable to a Subgroup Attack Due to Missing Subgroup Validation for SECT Curves	High	Also affects cryptography
GHSA-79v4-65xg-pq4g Vulnerable OpenSSL included in cryptography wheels	Medium	Also affects cryptography

Credits: m3t3kh4n

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