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OpenAdvisories
High · 8.7 CVE-2026-11310 EUVD-2026-39548GHSA-h4wh-367g-85gm

X.509 trust-chain bypass in wolfSSL_X509_verify_cert() via untrusted intermediate anchoring

Published Jun 25, 2026 · Updated Jun 26, 2026 · Assigned by wolfSSL

Description

X.509 trust-chain bypass in the OpenSSL compatibility certificate verifier (wolfSSL_X509_verify_cert()). This affects only builds with --enable-opensslextra (OPENSSL_EXTRA) and whose application validates certificates by calling X509_verify_cert() with caller-supplied untrusted intermediate certificates; for those users it is critical, otherwise the library is unaffected. In particular, native wolfSSL TLS/DTLS usage is not impacted. wolfSSL's X509_verify_cert() temporarily loads each caller-supplied untrusted intermediate into the certificate manager but failed to drop them before the trusted-store check, so an untrusted intermediate could anchor the path itself. An attacker can present a chain that never reaches a configured trust anchor and have it accepted, resulting in acceptance of an attacker-controlled certificate. This is certificate verification independent of TLS (e.g. S/MIME/CMS, code/firmware signing, JWT/JWS x5c), is not specific to any key type or algorithm, and a single untrusted intermediate suffices. The default wolfSSL TLS handshake (WOLFSSL_VERIFY_PEER) is not affected; only TLS applications doing manual or deferred peer verification through this API are, which also requires --enable-sessioncerts.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
wolfSSL wolfSSL 5.8.4 – ≤ 5.9.1 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 13 wolfssl No fix yet —
Debian 12 wolfssl No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 wolfssl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS wolfssl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 25.10 wolfssl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS wolfssl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS wolfssl No fix yet —
Show 3 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS wolfssl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS wolfssl No fix yet —
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS wolfssl No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Alpine v3.24 wolfssl 5.9.2-r0 —

References