High severity · published Oct 13, 2026
CVE-2026-77206
IKEv2 pre-authentication Null Pointer Dereference in EAP code
7.5
CVSS
0.7%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Libreswan's IKEv2 state machine has a null pointer dereference bug in the EAP handling code for authentication. As a result of inconsistency within the IKEv2 state machine code, this bug can be triggered by any IKEv2 connection, even if EAP is not configured at all. The error is caused by a fall-through where it incorrectly dereferences ike->sa.st_eap which is NULL. A malicious IKE_AUTH packet can trigger this bug, meaning the peer does not need to be authenticated. The bug results in a crash and restart of the pluto daemon. No remote code execution is possible. Continued exploitation can cause a denial of service.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.7% · higher than 51% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
LI
libreswan · The Libreswan Project
4.7 through 5.3.2; 5.4 through 5.4 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-77206
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-77206
vendor-advisory
https://libreswan.org/security/CVE-2026-77206/CVE-2026-77206.txt
patch
https://libreswan.org/security/CVE-2026-77206/
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