CVE-2024-26130 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in cryptography. A fix is available for cryptography — see the affected versions and patch details below.
cryptography NULL pointer deference with pkcs12.serialize_key_and_certificates when called with a non-matching certificate and private key and an hmac_hash override
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-26130.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-26130 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 379,145 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
cryptographyReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
cryptography is a package designed to expose cryptographic primitives and recipes to Python developers. Starting in version 38.0.0 and prior to version 42.0.4, if pkcs12.serialize_key_and_certificates is called with both a certificate whose public key did not match the provided private key and an encryption_algorithm with hmac_hash set (via PrivateFormat.PKCS12.encryption_builder().hmac_hash(...), then a NULL pointer dereference would occur, crashing the Python process. This has been resolved in version 42.0.4, the first version in which a ValueError is properly raised.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | cryptography | ≥ 38.0.0&&< 42.0.4 | 42.0.4pip install --upgrade 'cryptography==42.0.4' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for cryptography, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update cryptography to 42.0.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-26130 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-26130 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-26130. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
The vulnerability in python-cryptography that leads to a NULL pointer dereference during the pkcs12.serialize_key_and_certificates function execution is classified as a moderate severity issue. While the vulnerability can result in a denial-of-service (DoS) by crashing the Python process, it requires specific…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.4 for RHEL 8 | python3x-cryptography-0:42.0.5-1.el8ap | RHSA-2024:3781 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | python3.12-cryptography-0:41.0.7-2.el9_6.1 | RHSA-2025:15608 |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.15 for RHEL 8 | python-cryptography-0:42.0.8-1.el8pc | RHSA-2024:7987 |
| RHUI 4 for RHEL 8 | python-cryptography-0:42.0.8-1.el8ui | RHSA-2025:1335 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-26130 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-26130 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.