Vulnerability · Published Jul 30, 2026 · Assigned by OpenVPN
CVE-2026-12996
Medium 6.0
In plain English
A medium-severity use-after-free in OpenVPN from OpenVPN. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.5% (higher than 40% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Severity (CVSS 4.0)6.0Medium
Exploit odds (30 days)0.5%top 59.8% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known
Official description
A use-after-free in OpenVPN 2.6.0 through 2.6.20 and 2.7_alpha1 through 2.7.4 allows remote authenticated peers to potentially cause a denial of service or leak memory via crafted packets during TLS session promotion or expiry
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine:v3.24 | openvpn | 2.7.5-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2026-12996 |
| Debian:12 | openvpn | 2.6.14-0+deb12u2 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-12996 |
| Debian:13 | openvpn | 2.6.14-1+deb13u3 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-12996 |
| Debian:14 | openvpn | 2.7.5-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-12996 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | openvpn | 2.5.11-0ubuntu0.22.04.4 | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-12996 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | openvpn | 2.6.19-0ubuntu0.24.04.3 | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-12996 |
| Ubuntu:25.10 | openvpn | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-12996 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | openvpn | 2.7.0-1ubuntu1.2 | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-12996 |
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-416, CWE-125 · Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
References
- https://community.openvpn.net/Security%20Announcements/CVE-2026-12996 vendor-advisory
- https://community.openvpn.net/ReleaseHistory#openvpn-275-released-1-july-2026 release-notes
- https://community.openvpn.net/ReleaseHistory#openvpn-2621-released-1-july-2026 release-notes
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2026/07/msg00013.html