Botan has a certificate authentication bypass due to trust anchor confusion
Botan is a C++ cryptography library. In 3.11.0, the function Certificate_Store::certificate_known had a misleading name; it would return true if any certificate in the store had a DN (and subject key identifier, if set) matching that of the argument. It did not check that the cert it found and the cert it was passed were actually the same certificate. In 3.11.0 an extension of path validation logic was made which assumed that certificate_known only returned true if the certificates were in fact identical. The impact is that if an end entity certificate is presented, and its DN (and subject key identifier, if set) match that of any trusted root, the end entity certificate is accepted immediately as if it itself were a trusted root. , This vulnerability is fixed in 3.11.1.
- Published
- Apr 7, 2026
- Updated
- Jul 24, 2026
- EPSS
- 0.3% · 22th percentile
- CWE
- CWE-295
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Report tools
Action score
37
Monitor
Low priority for now.
- CVSS
- 37 / 40 · 9.3 / 10
- CISA KEV
- 0 / 30 · Not listed
- EPSS
- 0 / 30 · 0.3%
CISA SSVC decision
- Exploitation
- none
- Automatable
- yes
- Technical impact
- total
Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.
CNA vs NVD score
- NVD
- —
- CNA · GitHub_M
- 9.3
- NVD has not scored this yet; the score shown is the CNA’s.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.
Affected systems
| Vendor | Product | CPE |
|---|---|---|
| botan project | botan | cpe:2.3:a:botan_project:botan |
Affected versions
NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.
- botan project botan3.11.0
Versions reported by the vendor
Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (GitHub_M). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.
randombit botan
- >= 3.11.0, < 3.11.1affected
Package-level exposure
OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine:v3.24 | botan3 | before 3.11.1-r0 | 3.11.1-r0 |
Same product
botan project: all recordsOther highest-scoring records for the same primary product.
- CVE-2016-2196Heap-based buffer overflow in the P-521 reduction function in Botan 1.11.x before 1.11.27 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of servi41Plan
- CVE-2016-2195Integer overflow in the PointGFp constructor in Botan before 1.10.11 and 1.11.x before 1.11.27 allows remote attackers to overwrite memory a41Plan
- CVE-2021-24115In Botan before 2.17.3, constant-time computations are not used for certain decoding and encoding operations (base32, base58, base64, and he40Plan
- CVE-2016-9132In Botan 1.8.0 through 1.11.33, when decoding BER data an integer overflow could occur, which would cause an incorrect length field to be co40Plan
- CVE-2018-9127Botan 2.2.0 - 2.4.0 (fixed in 2.5.0) improperly handled wildcard certificates and could accept certain certificates as valid for hostnames w39Monitor
- CVE-2017-2801A programming error exists in a way Randombit Botan cryptographic library version 2.0.1 implements x500 string comparisons which could lead 39Monitor
Remediation
Which version to upgrade to
Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.
| Product / package | Fixed version | Source |
|---|---|---|
| randombit botan | 3.11.1 · description | Vendor (CNA) |
| alpine:botan3 | 3.11.1-r0 · Alpine:v3.24 | Package registry (OSV) |
Exploit status
No known public exploit
No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.
Research context
For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.
Timeline
From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.
No dated events beyond publication.
FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).
Patch and commit links
Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.
No commit or PR link among the references.
Credits
All researchersFinders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.
No credits in the CNA record.
Variant candidates
Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.
- CVE-2026-328848 days apartBotan: Case-Insensitive CN Values Bypass DNS excludedSubtrees Name Constraints (RFC 5280 Violation)23Monitor
Chain candidates
An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.
—
Bug bounty scope
No known public program.
Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).
Technical details
Attack conditions
- Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
- No account or password is required.
- No user action is required.
- No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
If successful
- Confidentiality
- Integrity
- Availability
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- X
Weakness class (CWE)
CWE-295 · Improper Certificate ValidationCVSS vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
nvd-secondary
Root cause
A certificate validation error is silently swallowed instead of terminating the connection. Often, code added for a test environment makes its way into production.
The bug in code
The whole CWE-295 classA representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.
Vulnerable
override fun checkServerTrusted(chain: Array<X509Certificate>, type: String) { // Left empty for the test environment}Fixed
val client = OkHttpClient.Builder() .certificatePinner( CertificatePinner.Builder() .add("api.sirius.example", "sha256/…") .build() ).build()Attack context
MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.
Attack patterns (CAPEC)
ATT&CK techniques
—
Noroxi analysis
No Noroxi analysis for this record yet
We don't hand-write analysis for all 385,000+ vulnerabilities; that wouldn't be honest. For notable, high-impact vulnerabilities our team writes the mechanism, detection and remediation steps.
We use this product, ask for helpChange log
- Fix✗ → ✓
For records you follow, these changes also arrive as notifications. →
References
- github.com/randombit/botan/security/advisories/GHSA-v782-6fq4-q827
- access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-34580
- bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2456288
- security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-34580.json
Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.