CVE-2026-46598 — crypto
MEDIUMCVE-2026-46598 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-129 vulnerability in golang.org/x/crypto. A fix is available for golang.org/x/crypto — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Invoking pathological inputs can lead to client panic in golang.org/x/crypto/ssh/agent
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-2026-46598.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-46598 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 383,485 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
golang.org/x/cryptoReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
For certain crafted inputs, a 'ed25519.PrivateKey' was created by casting malformed wire bytes, leading to a panic when used.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | golang.org/x/crypto | all versions | 0.52.0go get golang.org/x/crypto@v0.52.0 |
Affected Products
cryptogolangDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for golang.org/x/crypto, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update golang.org/x/crypto to 0.52.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-46598 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.
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.
A Moderate denial of service flaw exists in the `golang.org/x/crypto/ssh/agent` package. This vulnerability allows an attacker to provide specially crafted inputs that, when processed by the SSH agent, can lead to a program panic and crash. This could result in a temporary disruption of services that rely on the…
To mitigate this issue, restrict the exposure of the SSH agent to untrusted sources. Avoid enabling SSH agent forwarding when connecting to untrusted hosts or environments. Ensure that applications interacting with `golang.org/x/crypto/ssh/agent` validate all inputs to prevent malformed data from being processed. Reloading or restarting SSH services may be required for changes to take effect.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2026-46598 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.11 | multicluster-engine/hypershift-addon-rhel9-operator:1786912006 | RHSA-2026:57194 |
| OpenShift API for Data Protection 1.6 | oadp/oadp-velero-rhel9:1784058822 | RHSA-2026:43692 |
| Red Hat Hardened Images | golang1-26-main-1.26.8-0.1.hum1 | RHSA-2026:62391 |
| Red Hat Hardened Images | golang1-27-main-1.27.1-0.1.hum1 | RHSA-2026:66561 |
| Red Hat Openshift Data Foundation 4.22 | odf4/cephcsi-rhel9:1782932114 | RHSA-2026:37387 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-46598 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.