Symlink Attack Affecting openssl-encrypt package, versions [,1.4.9)
Threat Intelligence
The probability is the direct output of the EPSS model, and conveys an overall sense of the threat of exploitation in the wild. The percentile measures the EPSS probability relative to all known EPSS scores. Note: This data is updated daily, relying on the latest available EPSS model version. Check out the EPSS documentation for more details.
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Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-PYTHON-OPENSSLENCRYPT-21212660
- published18 Oct 2026
- disclosed1 Oct 2026
- creditUnknown
Introduced: 1 Oct 2026
NewCVE-2026-81690 (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 Symlink Attack through the verify-usb process. An attacker can achieve code execution by replacing a directory on a removable drive with a symlink to a malicious copy containing specially crafted __pycache__/*.pyc files, which are then loaded preferentially when the portable install is run.