Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-81693 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-81693 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-81693?
- High severity, with a CVSS score of 7.5, published 27 August 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Jahlives Openssl Encrypt before 1.4.9; openssl-encrypt (PyPI) ECOSYSTEM:introduced=0,fixed=1.4.9.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-81693?
- Yes. openssl-encrypt (PyPI): upgrade to 1.4.9 or later. Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2026-81693 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a software library.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-81693?
- Check whether you run Jahlives Openssl Encrypt or openssl-encrypt (PyPI) at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
How to fix
- openssl-encrypt (PyPI): upgrade to 1.4.9 or later
pip install "openssl-encrypt>=1.4.9"
Technical details
The vulnerability exists in the _parse_multi_qr_data function, which accepts a "total" field from untrusted QR JSON payloads without validation and directly uses it to materialize a Python set via range(1, total+1). An attacker can supply a crafted QR image declaring total=10^12 or higher, forcing the application to allocate approximately 10^12 integer objects until out-of-memory (OOM) conditions occur. The attack requires no authentication and is reachable via network if the application processes QR codes from untrusted sources. The fix in version 1.4.9 validates part/total as integers within the range 1–99 before any range materialization, matching constraints enforced during QR creation. Both the 1.4.x and 1.5.x product lines are affected.
Affected products
- jahlives openssl_encrypt before 1.4.9
Identifiers
- CVE-2026-81693
- PYSEC-2026-3798
Timeline
- 2026-08-12: disclosed: GitHub Security Advisory (GHSA-r23m-gf2m-8www) published
- 2026-08-27: advisory: CVE-2026-81693 assigned and published on NVD
- 2026-08-12: patched: Fix released in version 1.4.9