CVE-2021-3450: Fedoraproject Fedora
High severity, CVSS 7.4. EPSS: 18.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.
The X509_V_FLAG_X509_STRICT flag enables additional security checks of the certificates present in a certificate chain. It is not set by default. Starting from OpenSSL version 1.1.1h a check to disallow certificates in the chain that have explicitly encoded elliptic curve parameters was added as an additional strict check. An error in the implementation of this check meant that the result of a previous check to confirm that certificates in the chain are valid CA certificates was overwritten. This effectively bypasses the check that non-CA certificates must not be able to issue other certificates. If a "purpose" has been configured then there is a subsequent opportunity for checks that the certificate is a valid CA. All of the named "purpose" values implemented in libcrypto perform this check. Therefore, where a purpose is set the certificate chain will still be rejected even when the strict flag has been used. A purpose is set by default in libssl client and server certificate verification routines, but it can be overridden or removed by an application. In order to be affected, an application must explicitly set the X509_V_FLAG_X509_STRICT verification flag and either not set a purpose for the certificate verification or, in the case of TLS client or server applications, override the default purpose. OpenSSL versions 1.1.1h and newer are affected by this issue. Users of these versions should upgrade to OpenSSL 1.1.1k. OpenSSL 1.0.2 is not impacted by this issue. Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1k (Affected 1.1.1h-1.1.1j).
Affected products
- Fedoraproject Fedora: version 34 only
- Freebsd Freebsd: version 12.2 only
- McAfee Web Gateway: version 8.2.19 only; version 9.2.10 only; version 10.1.1 only
- McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Service: version 8.2.19 only; version 9.2.10 only; version 10.1.1 only
- Netapp Cloud Volumes Ontap Mediator: affected versions not specified
- Netapp Oncommand Workflow Automation: affected versions not specified
- Netapp Ontap Select Deploy Administration Utility: affected versions not specified
- Netapp Santricity Smi-S Provider Firmware: affected versions not specified
- Netapp Storagegrid: affected versions not specified
- Netapp Storagegrid Firmware: affected versions not specified
- Node.js Node.js: from 10.0.0, before 10.24.1 (fixed in 10.24.1); from 12.0.0, before 12.22.1 (fixed in 12.22.1); from 14.0.0, before 14.16.1 (fixed in 14.16.1); from 15.0.0, before 15.14.0 (fixed in 15.14.0)
- OpenSSL OpenSSL: from 1.1.1h, before 1.1.1k (fixed in 1.1.1k)
- Oracle Commerce Guided Search: version 11.3.2 only
- Oracle Enterprise Manager For Storage Management: version 13.4.0.0 only
- Oracle Graalvm: version 19.3.5 only; version 20.3.1.2 only; version 21.0.0.2 only
- Oracle Jd Edwards Enterpriseone Tools: before 9.2.6.0 (fixed in 9.2.6.0)
- Oracle Jd Edwards World Security: version a9.4 only
- Oracle MySQL Connectors: up to and including 8.0.23
- Oracle MySQL Enterprise Monitor: up to and including 8.0.23
- Oracle MySQL Server: up to and including 5.7.33; from 8.0.15, up to and including 8.0.23
- Oracle MySQL Workbench: up to and including 8.0.23
- Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools: from 8.57, up to and including 8.59
- Oracle Secure Backup: before 18.1.0.1.0 (fixed in 18.1.0.1.0)
- Oracle Secure Global Desktop: version 5.6 only
- Oracle WebLogic Server: version 12.2.1.4.0 only; version 14.1.1.0.0 only
- and 8 more
Published 2021-03-25. Last modified 2026-10-08.