Vulnerability · Published Aug 27, 2026 · Assigned by VulnCheck

CVE-2026-81684openssl_encrypt before 1.4.9 Information Disclosure via Command Line

Medium 6.2

In plain English

A medium-severity security flaw in openssl_encrypt from jahlives. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 6% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)6.2Medium

Exploit odds (30 days)0.2%top 94.1% of all CVEs

Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none

Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

In openssl_encrypt (pip package openssl-encrypt) versions <= 1.4.8, the desktop GUI passes the steganography password to the CLI child process on the command line via the --stego-password argument (on both encrypt and decrypt paths) instead of via an environment variable as done for the main password. Any local user can read the steganography password from /proc/<pid>/cmdline for the lifetime of the subprocess. Fixed in 1.4.9.

Affected packages & fixed versions

Ecosystem	Package	Fixed in	Advisory
PyPI	openssl-encrypt	1.4.9	PYSEC-2026-3958

Affected products (as reported)

Vendor	Product	Versions
jahlives	openssl_encrypt	0 – before 1.4.9

Weakness: CWE-214 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

References

GitHub Security Advisory (GHSA-rx2c-m92f-qv6p) vendor-advisory
VulnCheck Advisory: openssl_encrypt before 1.4.9 Information Disclosure via Command Line third-party-advisory