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Vulnerability record · CVE-2026-5501 · published 10 April 2026

CVE-2026-5501: Wolfssl improper certificate validation vulnerability

Wolfssl · Wolfssl

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.

8.6 CVSS 4.0 High EPSS 0.22% · top 88.9% CWE-295 · Improper certificate validation
8.6CVSS 4.0 base score
0.22%EPSS exploitation probability, 30 days
NoNot in CISA KEV
1Affected product versions listed by NVD
1References
17 Jun 2026Last modified by 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.

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:

Affected products

1 vulnerable configurations from NVD's CPE data, grouped by vendor and product.

References

LinkTags
https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssl/pull/10102 Issue Tracking

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Related vulnerabilities

Same products first, then exploited flaws of the same weakness class.

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Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database (record CVE-2026-5501), CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS (scores of 2026-09-26). This page is refreshed as NVD updates the record.