OpenSSL Quarterly Check-In: What Changed, What Broke, and What to Patch
Security shifts fast. OpenSSL moves faster. In this Openssl Quarterly Check-In, we track what changed, what broke, and what you must patch before the next exploit hits. No noise. Just the commits, CVEs, and release notes that matter.
The latest OpenSSL 3.x updates bring new cipher suites, improved certificate handling, and critical vulnerability fixes. If you are running 1.1.1, know its end-of-life date and plan your migration. The quarterly patch cadence is unforgiving—one missed build can expose production systems.
Key changes this quarter:
- TLS 1.3 session resumption performance improvements
- Deprecated legacy APIs now trigger warnings at compile time
- CRL and OCSP handling hardened against malformed inputs
- Fix for high-severity buffer overflow in the ASN.1 parser
Upstream commits show increased focus on post-quantum cryptography support. Experimental algorithms are available for testing. This is not production-ready, but it’s where the protocol stack is heading. Watch it now, or refactor in a hurry later.
Build pipelines should pin exact OpenSSL versions and verify binaries against known-good signatures. Automated dependency scans catch drift before it leaks into releases. The Quarterly Check-In isn’t just about staying current—it’s about staying safe.
Documentation updates are cleaner, with better examples for SSL_CTX configuration, making onboarding to 3.x less painful. Still, some APIs have subtle behavior changes that can break older workflows. Test before rolling out.
Every quarter, OpenSSL’s maintainers do their job. The question is, will you do yours? Run the build. Ship the patch. Audit your stack.
See how hoop.dev locks in secure builds and keeps dependencies fresh without manual overhead. Get it live in minutes.