CVE-2026-5501

N/A Unknown
Published: April 10, 2026 Modified: April 13, 2026
View on NVD

Description

wolfSSL_X509_verify_cert in the OpenSSL compatibility layer accepts a certificate chain in which the leaf's signature is not checked, if the attacker supplies an untrusted intermediate with Basic Constraints `CA:FALSE` that is legitimately signed by a trusted root. An attacker who obtains any leaf certificate from a trusted CA (e.g. a free DV cert from Let's Encrypt) can forge a certificate for any subject name with any public key and arbitrary signature bytes, and the function returns `WOLFSSL_SUCCESS` / `X509_V_OK`. The native wolfSSL TLS handshake path (`ProcessPeerCerts`) is not susceptible and the issue is limited to applications using the OpenSSL compatibility API directly, which would include integrations of wolfSSL into nginx and haproxy.

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References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools

Patch Vendor Advisory Exploit Third Party Advisory

1 reference(s) from NVD

Quick Stats

CVSS v3 Score
N/A / 10.0
EPSS (Exploit Probability)
0.0%
6th percentile
Exploitation Status
Not in CISA KEV

Weaknesses (CWE)