ShellCodeX vulnerability brief
CRITICAL
Received
CVE-2026-74900
openssl_encrypt versions before 1.4.0 contain a critical vulnerability in pqc.py where KEM decapsulation failures silently fall back to simulation mode, generating a deterministic shared secret from only 16 bytes of the private key and publicly available encapsulated key data. Attackers who obtain 16 bytes of the private key can compute the shared secret and decrypt all ciphertext, as the fallback triggers on any KEM failure without raising an error.
Published 17 Aug 2026, 11:16 UTC
Last modified 17 Aug 2026, 13:16 UTC
01
Attack profile
The conditions required to exploit this vulnerability and its potential impact.
Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Not assessed
Confidentiality
Not assessed
Integrity
Not assessed
Availability
Not assessed
02
Affected products
Product applicability statements supplied with the NVD record.
NVD has not published structured affected-product data for this record.
03
Weakness classification
CWE categories help security teams group the underlying software weakness.
04
Source references
External advisories, patches and technical reports attached to this CVE record.