diff --git a/common/common.docker b/common/common.docker
index 07f2a20..0158b10 100644
--- a/common/common.docker
+++ b/common/common.docker
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ ARG GIT_VERSION=2.36.1
 ARG CMAKE_VERSION=3.23.1
 ARG NINJA_VERSION=1.11.0
 ARG FLATCC_VERSION=d90ed18ad09824297ffd5fbc578ccb1666d13890
+ARG OPENSSL_VERSION=openssl-1.1.1o
+ARG OPENSSL_HASH=9384a2b0570dd80358841464677115df785edb941c71211f75076d72fe6b438f
 
 # Image build scripts
 COPY \
diff --git a/imagefiles/build-and-install-openssl.sh b/imagefiles/build-and-install-openssl.sh
index 5d6a705..adad2fb 100755
--- a/imagefiles/build-and-install-openssl.sh
+++ b/imagefiles/build-and-install-openssl.sh
@@ -47,9 +47,17 @@ source $MY_DIR/utils.sh
 # copied from https://github.com/pypa/manylinux/tree/master/docker/build_scripts
 #
 
-OPENSSL_ROOT=openssl-1.1.1l
+if [[ -z "${OPENSSL_VERSION}" ]]; then
+  echo >&2 'error: OPENSSL_VERSION env. variable must be set to a non-empty value'
+  exit 1
+fi
+
+if [[ -z "${OPENSSL_HASH}" ]]; then
+  echo >&2 'error: OPENSSL_HASH env. variable must be set to a non-empty value'
+  exit 1
+fi
+
 # Hash from https://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-1.1.1l.tar.gz.sha256
-OPENSSL_HASH=0b7a3e5e59c34827fe0c3a74b7ec8baef302b98fa80088d7f9153aa16fa76bd1
 OPENSSL_DOWNLOAD_URL=http://www.openssl.org/source/
 
 # a recent enough perl is needed to build openssl
@@ -111,7 +119,7 @@ function build_openssl {
 
 cd /usr/src
 build_perl $PERL_ROOT $PERL_HASH
-build_openssl $OPENSSL_ROOT $OPENSSL_HASH
+build_openssl "${OPENSSL_VERSION}" "${OPENSSL_HASH}"
 
 # Delete PERL
 rm -rf /opt/perl