# CVE-2026-13698: Denial of service in OpenVPN

> Remote attackers with valid keys can cause a denial of service via memory leak in OpenVPN, requiring upgrades to mitigate.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.0 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 6 Jul 2026
- **Updated:** 6 Jul 2026
- **Also known as:** ALPINE-CVE-2026-13698, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-13698, GHSA-rwhm-c36w-484h, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-13698

## What is CVE-2026-13698?

CVE-2026-13698 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in OpenVPN, published on 6 Jul 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

A memory leak in OpenVPN version 2.5.0 through 2.5.11, 2.6.0 through 2.6.20 and 2.7_alpha1 through 2.7.4 allows remote attackers with a valid tls-crypt-v2 client key to potentially cause a denial of service

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling), CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-13698?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Openvpn Openvpn.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-13698?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2026-13698 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-13698 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in OpenVPN

- [CVE-2025-12106](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-12106/): Memory corruption in OpenVPN (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2024-5594](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-5594/): Information disclosure in OpenVPN (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2018-7544](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-7544/): Cross-site request forgery in n/a (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2006-1629](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2006-1629/): Code injection in n/a (critical 9.0)
- [CVE-2024-4877](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-4877/): Privilege escalation in OpenVPN (high 8.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-13698 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-13698 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in OpenVPN, published on 6 Jul 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-13698 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: OpenVPN. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-13698/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-13698/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-13698
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-13698
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-13698

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-13698/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.