Bug 2494154

Summary: CVE-2026-50721 libreswan: IKEv1 Denial of Service via RSA-SHA1 (PKCS#1 Version 1.5 Encrypted) authentication payload [fedora-all]
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: TEJ RATHI <trathi>
Component: libreswanAssignee: Paul Wouters <paul.wouters>
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 45CC: dueno, paul.wouters, shebburn
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security, SecurityTracking
Target Release: ---Flags: fedora-admin-xmlrpc: mirror+
Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Unspecified   
Whiteboard: {"flaws": ["1f6b6cd1-aafe-4587-ab8d-2387752127fa"]}
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2026-08-25 19:47:15 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:    
Bug Blocks: 2494147    

Description TEJ RATHI 2026-06-29 11:38:20 UTC
Disclaimer: Community trackers are created by Red Hat Product Security team on a best effort basis. Package maintainers are required to ascertain if the flaw indeed affects their package, before starting the update process.

The Libreswan Project was notified of an issue when it receives an invalidly formatted PKCS#1.5 RSA signature payload that authenticates the IKE exchange. The vulnerability is similar to CVE-2018-16151.
Use of RSA signatures over certificates during X.509 certificate
verifications of the remote IKE peer are not affected by this vulnerability.

When the RSA exponent is weak (eg e=3), Bleichenbacher-style signature forgeries are possible, resulting in an authentication bypass. Note that most cryptographic library versions and libreswan raw RSA key generation have not allowed weak exponents for at least a decade, so valid RSA keys with weak exponents should be very rare.

Additionally, the invalid RSA IKE authentication payload can trigger an assertion, resulting in libreswan aborting and restarting. Continued sending of such packets can result in a denial of service.

Severity : Medium
Vulnerable versions : all version up to and including 5.3
Not vulnerable : 5.3.1 or later

Comment 1 Aoife Moloney 2026-08-17 15:01:39 UTC
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora Linux 45 development cycle.
Changing version to 45.