CVE-2026-5501 HIGH

CVE-2026-5501: Improper Certificate Signature Verification in X.509 Chain Validation Allows Forged Leaf Certificates

Vendor Wolfssl
Product wolfSSL
Weakness CWE-295
Published April 10, 2026
Last update April 22, 2026

CVSS base score

8.6/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

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

What the vulnerability does

01Description

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.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

April 10, 2026 CVE published
April 22, 2026 Record updated