What happened

On 10 November 2026, the OpenSSL Project published a security advisory covering five low-severity issues already fixed in its public GitHub repository, with packaged releases (4.1.1, 4.0.4, and 3.5.10) scheduled for 1 December 2026. Four of the five vulnerabilities affect only OpenSSL 4.1, 4.0, and 3.5: two in the QUIC stack (CVE-2026-88822 and CVE-2026-95691) and two in AES-GCM-SIV handling (CVE-2026-88823 and CVE-2026-95692). OpenSSL 3.0, 1.1.1, and 1.0.2 are not affected by those four issues. [1]

The fifth issue, CVE-2026-107496, is an infinite loop in CMS_encrypt() and CMS_encrypt_ex() when encrypting to an elliptic-curve recipient certificate that declares a group order of 1. It affects OpenSSL 4.1, 4.0, 3.5, 3.0, 1.1.1, and 1.0.2, though OpenSSL 4.0 and later are affected only when configured with enable-ec_explicit_curves. TLS and QUIC implementations do not use this CMS path, and FIPS modules are unaffected across all five CVEs. For 3.0, 1.1.1, and 1.0.2, upstream lists the upcoming 3.0.24, 1.1.1zk, and 1.0.2zt releases as restricted to premium support customers, while noting that 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, and 3.6 are out of support and were not analyzed. [1]

Why it matters for manufacturers

Long-lived embedded Linux branches on Yocto LTS, Buildroot, OpenWrt, or Debian commonly ship OpenSSL 3.0.x rather than 3.5 or 4.x. A vulnerability scanner that flags all five CVEs against a firmware image or waits for upstream tarballs obscures two practical distinctions: four of the CVEs do not exist in 3.0, and the remaining CVE reaches only applications that call CMS_encrypt() or CMS_encrypt_ex() with attacker-supplied recipient certificates.

Where an older maintained branch such as 3.0 is used and upstream point releases require commercial subscriptions, firmware teams either rely on their Linux distribution’s security maintenance or backport the public upstream commit directly into their package recipe. Publishing fixes in Git weeks before the tarball release also creates an intermediate window in which downstream patches may land before version numbers change.

Products still shipping an unanalyzed intermediate series (such as 3.1 through 3.4) face an additional maintenance gap: upstream advisories no longer test whether new flaws apply to those branches.

What to review in your firmware

  • Check the exact OpenSSL series, applied recipe patches, and build flags (including enable-ec_explicit_curves on 4.0+) for each supported product branch.
  • Inspect applications and provisioning tools for calls to CMS_encrypt() or CMS_encrypt_ex() using untrusted certificates before scheduling an emergency rebuild for CVE-2026-107496.
  • Record non-applicable QUIC and AES-GCM-SIV findings in VEX or build metadata on 3.0-based branches, or backport and regression-test the upstream Git fix where exposure is confirmed.

The engineering takeaway

Match each OpenSSL CVE to your maintained branch, compile options, and actual API call paths. When upstream tarballs lag behind Git commits or exclude older LTS series from public point releases, targeted CVE applicability records and commit-level backports keep firmware maintenance accurate.

Primary sources

  1. OpenSSL: Security Advisory [10th November 2026]10 November 2026. Covers CVE-2026-88822, CVE-2026-88823, CVE-2026-95691, CVE-2026-95692, and CVE-2026-107496, affected branches, build flags, and the 1 December 2026 release schedule.
  2. OpenSSL: Vulnerabilities and Git commit referencesLists per-branch fix commits for OpenSSL 4.1, 4.0, and 3.5 and support boundaries for older series.

Sources reviewed . The manufacturer guidance and engineering takeaway reflect Firmdura’s analysis.