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Potential CPU DoS via O(n^2) Fragment Reassembly in QUIC

Type: advisorySource: Official CVE List1 source record

Issue summary: The QUIC stream reassembly algorithm performance deteriorates progressively as packets are arriving out of order. The worst case has a quadratic complexity proportional to the number of stream frames kept in the buffer for the received stream data. Impact summary: A remote QUIC peer that completes the handshake can create a connection-scoped CPU pressure and potentially a Denial of Service using compliant STREAM frames inside the advertised receive window, with low attacker bandwidth. CWE: CWE-407: Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity Description: OpenSSL manages received QUIC stream fragments using a doubly-linked list. While it optimizes for append operations (at the end of the list), it falls back to a head-to-tail linear search for any fragment that does not immediately follow the current `tail`. By manipulating the sequence of offsets, an attacker can force the server to perform O(n^2) operations, consuming excessive CPU time for the QUIC process. FIPS impact: no The FIPS module is not affected as the QUIC implementation is outside of the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.

Announced Source revision 1
Original source ↗

CVE-2026-42772

Primary source · Revision 1

Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.

Security context

Source reference: cve:CVE-2026-42772

OpenSSL

Source reference: /containers/cna/affected/0/product

Affected versions
Not stated in this record
Fixed versions
Not stated in this record
Prerequisites
Not stated in this record

Structured affected-version data

Original package identities and version rules from this source.

[
  {
    "vendor": "OpenSSL",
    "product": "OpenSSL",
    "versions": [
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "4.0.0",
        "lessThan": "4.0.3",
        "versionType": "semver"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "3.6.0",
        "lessThan": "3.6.5",
        "versionType": "semver"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "3.5.0",
        "lessThan": "3.5.9",
        "versionType": "semver"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "3.4.0",
        "lessThan": "3.4.8",
        "versionType": "semver"
      }
    ],
    "defaultStatus": "unaffected"
  }
]
Related CVEs
CVE-2026-42772

Source reference: /cveMetadata/cveId

Publisher severity

No explicit severity was provided.

Event
#4913 · Revision 1
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Publisher date
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