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OpenAdvisories
High · 8.2 CVE-2026-11999 EUVD-2026-39496GHSA-wrw6-8jh4-qvcx

X.509 trust-chain bypass via path-depth exhaustion in wolfSSL_X509_verify_cert()

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

Description

X.509 trust-chain bypass (path-depth exhaustion) in the OpenSSL compatibility certificate verifier (wolfSSL_X509_verify_cert()). This affects only builds with --enable-opensslextra whose application calls X509_verify_cert() with caller-supplied untrusted intermediates; for those users it is critical, otherwise the library is unaffected. Native wolfSSL TLS/DTLS usage is not impacted. X509_verify_cert() returned success based only on the last verified link rather than on reaching a trust anchor: when the supplied chain is deeper than the verifier's maximum path depth (default 100), path building runs out of depth while still walking untrusted intermediates and the chain is accepted even though it never reaches a configured trust anchor, allowing acceptance of an attacker-controlled certificate. The default TLS handshake (WOLFSSL_VERIFY_PEER) is not affected; only applications doing manual or deferred verification through this API are.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
wolfSSL wolfSSL 5.7.4 – ≤ 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