CVE-2026-35189

Issue summary: A certificate with many nameRelativeToCRLIssuer CRL distribution points causes disproportionate heap growth when OpenSSL caches X.509 extensions.

Impact summary: Receiving a crafted certificate from a malicious peer can lead to significant memory pressure and possible Denial of Service in clients or in servers that solicit client certificates.

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

Description: A certificate or a set of certificates that fits under the limit for size of certificates accepted from the peer (~100 KiB) can result in allocation of several hundred MiB of resident memory on the receiving side during a normal TLS handshake. This may be enough to crash the client or server, if multiple concurrent connections lead to similarly large memory allocations.

The fix postpones processing of the CRL distribution points extensions in certificates to the time when the processed value is required for CRL processing. This avoids keeping large memory allocations for a long time when such certificates are received.

FIPS impact: no The affected code is outside the FIPS module boundary.

Weakness

The product allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any intended restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated.

Affected Software

Name	Vendor	Start Version	End Version
Red Hat Hardened Images	RedHat	openssl-main-3.5.9-0.1.hum1	*
Red Hat Hardened Images	RedHat	openssl3-main-3.5.9-0.1.hum1	*
Nodejs	Ubuntu	esm-apps/jammy	*
Nodejs	Ubuntu	jammy	*
Openssl	Ubuntu	esm-infra-legacy/trusty	*
Openssl	Ubuntu	esm-infra-legacy/xenial	*
Openssl	Ubuntu	esm-infra/bionic	*
Openssl	Ubuntu	esm-infra/focal	*
Openssl	Ubuntu	jammy	*
Openssl	Ubuntu	noble	*
Openssl	Ubuntu	resolute	*
Openssl	Ubuntu	upstream	*
Openssl1.0	Ubuntu	esm-infra/bionic	*

Potential Mitigations

Assume all input is malicious. Use an “accept known good” input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, “boat” may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as “red” or “blue.”
Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code’s environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
The second solution can be difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply requires more resources on the part of the attacker.
If the program must fail, ensure that it fails gracefully (fails closed). There may be a temptation to simply let the program fail poorly in cases such as low memory conditions, but an attacker may be able to assert control before the software has fully exited. Alternately, an uncontrolled failure could cause cascading problems with other downstream components; for example, the program could send a signal to a downstream process so the process immediately knows that a problem has occurred and has a better chance of recovery.
Ensure that all failures in resource allocation place the system into a safe posture.
Use quotas or other resource-limiting settings provided by the operating system or environment. For example, when managing system resources in POSIX, setrlimit() can be used to set limits for certain types of resources, and getrlimit() can determine how many resources are available. However, these functions are not available on all operating systems.
When the current levels get close to the maximum that is defined for the application (see CWE-770), then limit the allocation of further resources to privileged users; alternately, begin releasing resources for less-privileged users. While this mitigation may protect the system from attack, it will not necessarily stop attackers from adversely impacting other users.
Ensure that the application performs the appropriate error checks and error handling in case resources become unavailable (CWE-703).

NVD	https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-35189
CWE	https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/770.html

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

Weakness

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

Related Attack Patterns

References