CVE-2026-42790
Essential information
- Published
- 27/05/2026 17:16
- Modified
- 27/05/2026 19:38
- Author
- —
- Creator
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- CVSS
- 7.6 HIGH (v3) 7.6 HIGH (v4.0)
- CISA KEV
- No
- CWE
- —
- CVSS vector
-
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CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/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
CVSS metrics
- Access vector
- —
- Access complexity
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- Authentication
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- Confidentiality impact
- —
- Integrity impact
- —
- Availability impact
- —
- Exploitability
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- Remediation level
- —
- Report confidence
- —
- Temporal score
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- Attack vector
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- Attack complexity
- —
- Privileges required
- —
- User interaction
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- Scope
- —
- Confidentiality impact
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- Integrity impact
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- Availability impact
- —
- Exploit code maturity
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- Remediation level
- —
- Report confidence
- —
- Temporal score
- —
- Attack vector
- NETWORK
- Attack complexity
- HIGH
- Attack requirements
- PRESENT
- Privileges required
- NONE
- User interaction
- PASSIVE
- Confidentiality (V)
- HIGH
- Confidentiality (S)
- NONE
- Integrity (V)
- HIGH
- Integrity (S)
- NONE
- Availability (V)
- NONE
- Availability (S)
- NONE
- Exploit maturity
- NOT_DEFINED
Description
Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability in Erlang OTP public_key (pubkey_cert and public_key modules) allows a DNS nameConstraints bypass via subject CommonName fallback in TLS hostname verification.
Two flaws combine to allow a subordinate CA whose DNS nameConstraints are restricted (e.g. permitted;DNS:allowed.example.com) to issue a leaf certificate that an OTP TLS client accepts as a valid identity for an out-of-scope hostname (e.g. victim.example.com):
First, pubkey_cert:validate_names/6 in lib/public_key/src/pubkey_cert.erl only checks SAN DNS entries against nameConstraints. Per RFC 5280, a permitted DNS subtree only restricts certificates that contain a DNS-typed name. A leaf with no subjectAltName therefore trivially satisfies any permitted;DNS:... constraint regardless of its subject commonName.
Second, public_key:pkix_verify_hostname/3 in lib/public_key/src/public_key.erl falls back to the subject commonName when no subjectAltName is present, extracting id-at-commonName attributes as presented IDs and matching them against the reference hostname. The strict pkix_verify_hostname_match_fun(https) matcher does not suppress this fallback.
The result is that path validation accepts a CN-only leaf under a DNS-constrained intermediate (no SAN means the nameConstraints are not triggered), and hostname verification then accepts it via the CN fallback. The bypass is reachable from stock ssl:connect with verify_peer, a trusted CA, SNI, and the canonical strict https hostname matcher.
This issue affects OTP from OTP 19.3 before OTP 26.2.5.21, 27.3.4.12, 28.5.0.1, and 29.0.1 corresponding to public_key from 1.4 before 1.15.1.7, 1.17.1.3, 1.20.3.1, and 1.21.1.
NVD status
- Status
- Undergoing Analysis — CVE has been recently published to the CVE List and has been received by the NVD.
- Source
- 6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db
- NVD
- View on NVD
Affected products (CPE)
| Product | CPE |
|---|---|
| erlang / otp | cpe:2.3:a:erlang:otp:<19.3-26.2.5.21:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| erlang / public key | cpe:2.3:a:erlang:public_key:<1.4-1.15.1.7:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| erlang / public key | cpe:2.3:a:erlang:public_key:<1.17.1.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| erlang / public key | cpe:2.3:a:erlang:public_key:<1.20.3.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| erlang / public key | cpe:2.3:a:erlang:public_key:<1.21.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |