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CWE-296

Improper Following of a Certificate's Chain of Trust

BaseDraftSimple19 CVEs
The product does not follow, or incorrectly follows, the chain of trust for a certificate back to a trusted root certificate.

Extended description

There are several ways in which the chain of trust might be broken, including but not limited to: Any certificate in the chain is self-signed, unless it is the root. Not every intermediate certificate is checked, starting from the original certificate all the way up to the root certificate. An intermediate, CA-signed certificate does not have the expected Basic Constraints or other important extensions. The root certificate has been compromised or authorized to the wrong party.

Common consequences2

  • Non-RepudiationHide Activities

    Exploitation of this flaw can lead to the trust of data that may have originated with a spoofed source.

  • IntegrityConfidentialityAvailabilityAccess ControlGain Privileges or Assume IdentityExecute Unauthorized Code or Commands

    Data, requests, or actions taken by the attacking entity can be carried out as a spoofed benign entity.

Potential mitigations3

  1. Architecture and Design

    Ensure that proper certificate checking is included in the system design.

  2. Implementation

    Understand, and properly implement all checks necessary to ensure the integrity of certificate trust integrity.

  3. Implementation

    If certificate pinning is being used, ensure that all relevant properties of the certificate are fully validated before the certificate is pinned, including the full chain of trust.

Relationships2

CVEs referencing this CWE19

CVEDescriptionSeverityEPSSFlagsModified
CVE-2021-44532

Node.js < 12.22.9, < 14.18.3, < 16.13.2, and < 17.3.1 converts SANs (Subject Alternative Names) to a string format. It uses this string to check peer certificates against hostnames when validating connections. The string format was subject to an injection vulnerability when name constraints were used within a certificate chain, allowing the bypass of these name constraints.Versions of Node.js with the fix for this escape SANs containing the problematic characters in order to prevent the injection. This behavior can be reverted through the --security-revert command-line option.

MEDIUM5.3
10%p95
2025-04-30
CVE-2019-3890

It was discovered evolution-ews before 3.31.3 does not check the validity of SSL certificates. An attacker could abuse this flaw to get confidential information by tricking the user into connecting to a fake server without the user noticing the difference.

NONE
0.99%p58
2024-11-21
CVE-2021-1566

A vulnerability in the Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) for Endpoints integration of Cisco AsyncOS for Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) and Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to intercept traffic between an affected device and the AMP servers. This vulnerability is due to improper certificate validation when an affected device establishes TLS connections. A man-in-the-middle attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted TLS packet to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to spoof a trusted host and then extract sensitive information or alter certain API requests.

HIGH7.4
0.67%p47
2024-11-21
CVE-2019-3762

Data Protection Central versions 1.0, 1.0.1, 18.1, 18.2, and 19.1 contains an Improper Certificate Chain of Trust Vulnerability. A remote unauthenticated attacker could potentially exploit this vulnerability by obtaining a CA signed certificate from Data Protection Central to impersonate a valid system to compromise the integrity of data.

HIGH7.5
0.65%p46
2024-11-21
CVE-2021-23155

Improper validation of the cloud certificate chain in Mobile Client allows man-in-the-middle attack to impersonate the legitimate Command Centre Server. This issue affects: Gallagher Command Centre Mobile Client for Android 8.60 versions prior to 8.60.065; version 8.50 and prior versions.

MEDIUM6.8
0.47%p37
2024-11-21
CVE-2026-44852

An authenticated remote code execution vulnerability exists in the AOS-8 and AOS-10 web-based management interface. A vulnerability in the certificate download functionality could allow an authenticated remote attacker to overwrite arbitrary files on the underlying operating system by exploiting improper input validation in the file path parameter. Successful exploitation could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system as a privileged user.

HIGH7.2
0.44%p35
2026-05-15
CVE-2025-48057

Icinga 2 is a monitoring system which checks the availability of network resources, notifies users of outages, and generates performance data for reporting. Prior to versions 2.12.12, 2.13.12, and 2.14.6, the VerifyCertificate() function can be tricked into incorrectly treating certificates as valid. This allows an attacker to send a malicious certificate request that is then treated as a renewal of an already existing certificate, resulting in the attacker obtaining a valid certificate that can be used to impersonate trusted nodes. This only occurs when Icinga 2 is built with OpenSSL older than version 1.1.0. This issue has been patched in versions 2.12.12, 2.13.12, and 2.14.6.

CRITICAL9.8
0.41%p33
2025-12-05
CVE-2021-23162

Improper validation of the cloud certificate chain in Mobile Connect allows man-in-the-middle attack to impersonate the legitimate Command Centre Server. This issue affects: Gallagher Command Centre Mobile Connect for Android 15 versions prior to 15.04.040; version 14 and prior versions.

HIGH8.1
0.41%p33
2024-11-21
CVE-2026-4370

A vulnerability was identified in Juju from version 3.2.0 until 3.6.19 and from version 4.0 until 4.0.4, where the internal Dqlite database cluster fails to perform proper TLS client and server authentication. Specifically, the Juju controller's database endpoint does not validate client certificates when a new node attempts to join the cluster. An unauthenticated attacker with network reachability to the Juju controller's Dqlite port can exploit this flaw to join the database cluster. Once joined, the attacker gains full read and write access to the underlying database, allowing for total data compromise.

CRITICAL10.0
0.38%p30
2026-04-08
CVE-2026-27134

Strimzi provides a way to run an Apache Kafka cluster on Kubernetes or OpenShift in various deployment configurations. In versions 0.49.0 through 0.50.0, when using a custom Cluster or Clients CA with a multistage CA chain consisting of multiple CAs, Strimzi incorrectly configures the trusted certificates for mTLS authentication on the internal as well as user-configured listeners. All CAs from the CA chain will be trusted. And users with certificates signed by any of the CAs in the chain will be able to authenticate. This issue affects only users using a custom Cluster or Clients CA with a multistage CA chain consisting of multiple CAs. It does not affect users using the Strimzi-managed Cluster and Clients CAs. It also does not affect users using custom Cluster or Clients CA with only a single CA (i.e., no CA chain with multiple CAs). This issue has been fixed in version 0.50.1. To workaround this issue, instead of providing the full CA chain as the custom CA, users can provide only the single CA that should be used.

HIGH8.1
0.29%p20
2026-02-25
CVE-2025-22459

Improper certificate validation in Ivanti Endpoint Manager before version 2024 SU1 or before version 2022 SU7 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to intercept limited traffic between clients and servers.

MEDIUM4.8
0.29%p21
2025-05-16
CVE-2025-12383

In Eclipse Jersey versions 2.45, 3.0.16, 3.1.9 a race condition can cause ignoring of critical SSL configurations - such as mutual authentication, custom key/trust stores, and other security settings. This issue may result in SSLHandshakeException under normal circumstances, but under certain conditions, it could lead to unauthorized trust in insecure servers (see PoC)

HIGH7.4
0.27%p18
2026-02-05
CVE-2025-1146

CrowdStrike uses industry-standard TLS (transport layer security) to secure communications from the Falcon sensor to the CrowdStrike cloud. CrowdStrike has identified a validation logic error in the Falcon sensor for Linux, Falcon Kubernetes Admission Controller, and Falcon Container Sensor where our TLS connection routine to the CrowdStrike cloud can incorrectly process server certificate validation. This could allow an attacker with the ability to control network traffic to potentially conduct a man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attack. CrowdStrike identified this issue internally and released a security fix in all Falcon sensor for Linux, Falcon Kubernetes Admission Controller, and Falcon Container Sensor versions 7.06 and above. CrowdStrike identified this issue through our longstanding, rigorous security review process, which has been continually strengthened with deeper source code analysis and ongoing program enhancements as part of our commitment to security resilience. CrowdStrike has no indication of any exploitation of this issue in the wild. CrowdStrike has leveraged its world class threat hunting and intelligence capabilities to actively monitor for signs of abuse or usage of this flaw and will continue to do so. Windows and Mac sensors are not affected by this.

HIGH8.1
0.27%p18
2026-04-15
CVE-2026-42789

Improper Following of a Certificate's Chain of Trust vulnerability in Erlang OTP public_key (pubkey_cert module) allows a non-CA certificate to be accepted as an intermediate issuer, enabling certificate chain forgery. In lib/public_key/src/pubkey_cert.erl, pubkey_cert:validate_extensions/7 contains two flaws that together allow a certificate with basicConstraints cA:false and no keyUsage extension to be used as an intermediate issuer in a chain passed to public_key:pkix_path_validation/3: the cA:false clause recurses into the remaining extensions without rejecting the certificate when it is in issuer position, and the keyUsage check only fires when the extension is present, so a certificate lacking keyUsage entirely bypasses the keyCertSign enforcement. Any party holding an end-entity certificate with basicConstraints cA:false and no keyUsage extension, issued by any CA in the victim's trust store, can use that certificate's private key to sign forged leaf certificates for arbitrary identities. public_key:pkix_path_validation/3 accepts the resulting chain, and by extension every TLS or mTLS endpoint built on the OTP ssl application that relies on the default verifier is affected, including server identity verification on the client side and client certificate verification on mTLS servers. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 26.2.5.21, 27.3.4.12, 28.5.0.1, and 29.0.1 corresponding to public_key from 0.22 before 1.15.1.7, 1.17.1.3, 1.20.3.1, and 1.21.1.

MEDIUM4.8
0.23%p14
2026-06-05
CVE-2024-43196

IBM OpenPages with Watson 8.3 and 9.0  application could allow an authenticated user to manipulate data in the Questionnaires application allowing the user to spoof other users' responses.

MEDIUM4.3
0.22%p12
2025-08-15
CVE-2025-10539

Due to improper TLS certificate validation in the DeskTime Time Tracking App before version 1.3.674, attackers who can position themselves in the network path between the client and the DeskTime update servers can return a malicious executable in response to an update request. This allows the attacker to achieve user-level remote code execution on the affected client.

MEDIUM4.8
0.18%p8
2026-05-18
CVE-2026-27133

Strimzi provides a way to run an Apache Kafka cluster on Kubernetes or OpenShift in various deployment configurations. From 0.47.0 to before 0.50.1, when a chain consisting of multiple CA (Certificate Authority) certificates is used in the trusted certificates configuration of a Kafka Connect operand or of the target cluster in the Kafka MirrorMaker 2 operand, all of the certificates that are part of the CA chain will be trusted individually when connecting to the Apache Kafka cluster. Due to this error, the affected operand (Kafka Connect or Kafka MirrorMaker 2) might accept connections to Kafka brokers using server certificates signed by one of the other CAs in the CA chain and not just by the last CA in the chain. This issue is fixed in Strimzi 0.50.1.

MEDIUM5.9
0.18%p8
2026-02-27
CVE-2026-33779

An Improper Following of a Certificate's Chain of Trust vulnerability in J-Web of Juniper Networks Junos OS on SRX Series allows a PITM to intercept the communication of the device and get access to confidential information and potentially modify it. When an SRX device is provisioned to connect to Security Director (SD) cloud, it doesn't perform sufficient verification of the received server certificate. This allows a PITM to intercept the communication between the SRX and SD cloud and access credentials and other sensitive information. This issue affects Junos OS: * all versions before 22.4R3-S9, * 23.2 versions before 23.2R2-S6, * 23.4 versions before 23.4R2-S7, * 24.2 versions before 24.2R2-S3, * 24.4 versions before 24.4R2-S2, * 25.2 versions before 25.2R1-S2, 25.2R2.

MEDIUM6.5
0.12%p2
2026-04-17
CVE-2026-24066

Slate Digital Connect 1.37.0 for macOS installs a privileged helper tool, com.slatedigital.connect.privileged.helper.tool, which exposes the XPC service com.slatedigital.connect.privileged.helper.tool2. The helper validates connecting XPC clients by checking only the subject.OU value of the client's signing certificate and does not verify that the certificate chains to a trusted code-signing authority. A local attacker can sign a malicious client with a self-signed certificate containing the expected organizational unit value and connect to the privileged XPC service. This allows unauthorized access to privileged helper functionality and may lead to local privilege escalation.

HIGH8.4
0.09%p0
2026-06-10