Home/CVE/wolfSSL_X509_verify_cert in the OpenSSL compatibility layer accepts a certificate chain in which the leaf's signature is
CVE

CVE-2026-5501

wolfSSL_X509_verify_cert in the OpenSSL compatibility layer accepts a certificate chain in which the leaf's signature is

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.

HIGH · CVSS 8.1 EPSS 0.00023
Schedule remediation
  • CVSS base score ≥ 7.0
Sigma rules0 YARA rules0

Weakness Classification

Affected Products & Versions

1
wolfssl<= 5.9.0

Scoring & Timeline

8.1
HIGH · CVSS v3.1 · facts@wolfssl.com
View on NVD
Attack Vector
Network Adjacent Local Physical
Attack Complexity
Low High
Privileges Required
None Low High
User Interaction
None Required
Scope
Unchanged Changed
Confidentiality
None Low High
Integrity
None Low High
Availability
None Low High
Published to NVD10 Apr 2026 · 04:17 AM
CVSS VectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
SSVC triage · cisa-vulnrichment
Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
SSVC asks the questions that actually drive patch urgency: is it being exploited, can attacks be automated, and how total is the impact.

Vendor Advisories

1
🔗

References & Sources

1
Source URLs (vendor pages, mailing lists, write-ups). Exploit/PoC links are in their own section above to avoid duplication.
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