Untrusted Search Path Affecting openssl-encrypt package, versions [,1.4.9)


Severity

Recommended
0.0
high
0
10

CVSS assessment by Snyk's Security Team. Learn more

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.21% (10th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-PYTHON-OPENSSLENCRYPT-21211272
  • published18 Oct 2026
  • disclosed31 Aug 2026
  • creditUnknown

Introduced: 31 Aug 2026

CVE-2026-81697  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-426  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade openssl-encrypt to version 1.4.9 or higher.

Overview

openssl-encrypt is an A package for secure file encryption and decryption based on modern ciphers using heavy-compute-load chaining of hashing and KDF to generate strong encryption password based on users provided password to ensure secure encryption of files

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Untrusted Search Path through the crypt_settings.py process. An attacker can cause encryption to use weak key derivation settings by placing a malicious crypt_settings.json file in the current working directory, leading to the possibility of offline brute-force attacks against encrypted data.

References

CVSS Base Scores

version 4.0
version 3.1