CVE-2026-27586 HIGH

CVE-2026-27586: Caddy's mTLS client authentication silently fails open when CA certificate file is missing or malformed

Vendor Caddyserver
Product caddy
Weakness CWE-755
Published February 24, 2026
Last update February 26, 2026

CVSS base score

8.8/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Caddy is an extensible server platform that uses TLS by default. Prior to version 2.11.1, two swallowed errors in `ClientAuthentication.provision()` cause mTLS client certificate authentication to silently fail open when a CA certificate file is missing, unreadable, or malformed. The server starts without error but accepts any client certificate signed by any system-trusted CA, completely bypassing the intended private CA trust boundary. Any deployment using `trusted_ca_cert_file` or `trusted_ca_certs_pem_files` for mTLS will silently degrade to accepting any system-trusted client certificate if the CA file becomes unavailable. This can happen due to a typo in the path, file rotation, corruption, or permission changes. The server gives no indication that mTLS is misconfigured. Version 2.11.1 fixes the vulnerability.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

February 24, 2026 CVE published
February 26, 2026 Record updated