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curl CVE-2026-5545

| EUVDEUVD-2026-29923 MEDIUM
Insufficient Session Expiration (CWE-613)
6.5
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain

  1. Access
    Identify curl client using HTTP Negotiate against target
  2. Delivery
    Establish or wait for existing Negotiate-authenticated connection in pool
  3. Exploit
    Trigger second request eligible for pool reuse
  4. Execution
    curl incorrectly reuses Negotiate session context
  5. Persist
    Server processes request under wrong authentication identity
  6. Impact
    Attacker gains unauthorized access or data exposure

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A07:2025 - Authentication Failures
ASVS 5.0
V7 - Session Management Session expiration enforcement
Exploitation Conditions

Exploitation requires three concurrent conditions: (1) curl or libcurl must be performing HTTP requests using HTTP Negotiate authentication (SPNEGO/Kerberos/NTLM), which is a non-default configuration that must be explicitly enabled or targeted at a Negotiate-requiring server; (2) curl's connection pooling and reuse must be active (this IS the default behavior, but condition 1 constrains scope significantly); and (3) a previously Negotiate-authenticated connection must be present in the pool and eligible for reuse at the moment a subsequent, differently-scoped request is issued - requiring either multi-user concurrency or sequential request timing to misalign. Limiting factors include the AC:H complexity rating, the non-default nature of HTTP Negotiate in most deployments, and the SSVC 'non-automatable' determination, which means mass exploitation tooling is not feasible. PR:N from the CVSS vector confirms no special privilege level is required from the attacker's perspective, but the attacker must be in a position to influence or observe the request-to-connection mapping - for example, as a co-tenant in a shared application server or as the operator of a target server receiving the misrouted requests.

Impact

The CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.5 (AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N) presents an initially alarming integrity signal (I:H) but is substantially tempered by the high attack complexity (AC:H), which confirms that exploitation requires specific conditions to align - notably, an active connection pool entry from a previous HTTP Negotiate exchange must be available for misuse. The EPSS score of 0.04% (13th percentile) is extremely low, reflecting the community's current assessment that reliable exploitation at scale is unlikely. SSVC further corroborates this: exploitation status is confirmed as 'none,' the attack is assessed as non-automatable, and technical impact is only partial. There is no CISA KEV listing and no POC identified. Real-world risk is meaningfully below what the raw CVSS score implies: this is not a default-configuration, spray-and-pray attack surface, but a protocol-and-context-specific flaw that requires an attacker to influence or observe curl's connection pool state. Organizations running curl in multi-tenant or multi-user environments where HTTP Negotiate is used - such as intranet proxies, enterprise web services, or CI/CD pipelines hitting Kerberos-protected endpoints - carry the highest realistic exposure.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

In an enterprise environment where curl (or an application embedding libcurl) is used to access Kerberos-protected internal web services, an attacker or a co-located process that can time or trigger HTTP requests could cause curl to reuse an existing HTTP Negotiate-authenticated connection - authenticated as User A - for a request intended to authenticate as User B. The result is that the second request is serviced under User A's security context, potentially allowing access to resources or data scoped to that identity. Attack complexity is high (AC:H), meaning specific timing and connection pool state alignment is required; no public exploit code exists to simplify this.

This Month Plan within 30 days. Why: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9).
Patch available 0.0% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAIv1 – Jun 08, 2026

Wrong reuse of HTTP Negotiate-authenticated connections in curl exposes a high-integrity-impact vulnerability where subsequent HTTP requests may inherit an authentication context they should not, potentially allowing requests to be dispatched under incorrect Negotiate (Kerberos/NTLM/SPNEGO) credentials. Affecting an extraordinarily broad version range - curl 7.10.6 through at least 8.19.0 per EUVD data - this flaw was coordinated and disclosed by curl maintainer Daniel Stenberg via oss-security on 2026-04-29 alongside three related connection-reuse CVEs. No public exploit code has been identified and no active exploitation has been confirmed; a vendor-released patch is available, with downstream fixes confirmed by Red Hat (RHSA-2026:12916) and SUSE.

RemediationAI

The primary remediation is to upgrade curl to the patched version released by the curl project; the exact fixed version should be confirmed at https://curl.se/docs/CVE-2026-5545.html, as no specific fixed version number is independently confirmed in the available intelligence data. Red Hat Enterprise Linux users should apply RHSA-2026:12916 via standard package management; SUSE users should apply the relevant SUSE-SU advisory for their distribution version. If an immediate upgrade is not feasible in environments using HTTP Negotiate authentication, a compensating control is to disable connection reuse explicitly in curl (via CURLOPT_FORBID_REUSE set to 1L in libcurl, or --no-keepalive in the curl CLI) - note this carries a performance cost as each request will require a full connection establishment. Alternatively, avoid HTTP Negotiate authentication entirely where Kerberos or NTLM is not strictly required, substituting token-based or certificate-based auth that is not session-bound to the connection. Monitoring curl usage in environments with enterprise authentication (Active Directory, MIT Kerberos) for anomalous cross-user request patterns is advisable until patching is complete.

Affected VersionsENISA

curl 8.2.0 ≤8.2.0
curl 7.31.0 ≤7.31.0
curl 7.68.0 ≤7.68.0
curl 7.23.1 ≤7.23.1
curl 7.22.0 ≤7.22.0
curl 8.0.0 ≤8.0.0
curl 7.85.0 ≤7.85.0
curl 7.21.2 ≤7.21.2
curl 7.19.7 ≤7.19.7
curl 7.46.0 ≤7.46.0
curl 8.1.1 ≤8.1.1
curl 7.83.0 ≤7.83.0
curl 7.54.1 ≤7.54.1
curl 7.65.2 ≤7.65.2
curl 7.44.0 ≤7.44.0
curl 7.61.0 ≤7.61.0
curl 7.35.0 ≤7.35.0
curl 7.12.1 ≤7.12.1
curl 7.21.6 ≤7.21.6
curl 7.15.0 ≤7.15.0
curl 7.17.0 ≤7.17.0
curl 8.18.0 ≤8.18.0
curl 8.4.0 ≤8.4.0
curl 7.50.0 ≤7.50.0
curl 7.62.0 ≤7.62.0
curl 7.19.0 ≤7.19.0
curl 7.37.0 ≤7.37.0
curl 7.36.0 ≤7.36.0
curl 7.21.0 ≤7.21.0
curl 8.5.0 ≤8.5.0
curl 7.16.3 ≤7.16.3
curl 7.27.0 ≤7.27.0
curl 7.84.0 ≤7.84.0
curl 8.0.1 ≤8.0.1
curl 8.19.0 ≤8.19.0
curl 7.66.0 ≤7.66.0
curl 7.64.1 ≤7.64.1
curl 7.79.1 ≤7.79.1
curl 8.10.1 ≤8.10.1
curl 7.19.1 ≤7.19.1
curl 7.73.0 ≤7.73.0
curl 7.19.2 ≤7.19.2
curl 7.83.1 ≤7.83.1
curl 7.20.0 ≤7.20.0
curl 7.45.0 ≤7.45.0
curl 8.16.0 ≤8.16.0
curl 7.58.0 ≤7.58.0
curl 8.17.0 ≤8.17.0
curl 7.81.0 ≤7.81.0
curl 7.56.0 ≤7.56.0
curl 7.25.0 ≤7.25.0
curl 7.74.0 ≤7.74.0
curl 7.30.0 ≤7.30.0
curl 7.43.0 ≤7.43.0
curl 7.10.6 ≤7.10.6
curl 7.51.0 ≤7.51.0
curl 7.55.0 ≤7.55.0
curl 8.7.1 ≤8.7.1
curl 8.11.1 ≤8.11.1
curl 7.80.0 ≤7.80.0
curl 7.17.1 ≤7.17.1
curl 7.53.0 ≤7.53.0
curl 7.21.7 ≤7.21.7
curl 7.32.0 ≤7.32.0
curl 8.14.0 ≤8.14.0
curl 7.77.0 ≤7.77.0
curl 7.71.1 ≤7.71.1
curl 7.13.2 ≤7.13.2
curl 7.65.1 ≤7.65.1
curl 7.16.1 ≤7.16.1
curl 7.49.1 ≤7.49.1
curl 7.12.3 ≤7.12.3
curl 7.56.1 ≤7.56.1
curl 7.13.1 ≤7.13.1
curl 7.49.0 ≤7.49.0
curl 7.67.0 ≤7.67.0
curl 7.60.0 ≤7.60.0
curl 7.28.0 ≤7.28.0
curl 7.52.1 ≤7.52.1
curl 7.10.7 ≤7.10.7
curl 7.26.0 ≤7.26.0
curl 7.15.3 ≤7.15.3
curl 8.3.0 ≤8.3.0
curl 7.18.0 ≤7.18.0
curl 7.75.0 ≤7.75.0
curl 7.64.0 ≤7.64.0
curl 7.16.0 ≤7.16.0
curl 7.23.0 ≤7.23.0
curl 7.61.1 ≤7.61.1
curl 7.15.1 ≤7.15.1
curl 8.13.0 ≤8.13.0
curl 7.24.0 ≤7.24.0
curl 7.34.0 ≤7.34.0
curl 7.12.2 ≤7.12.2
curl 7.50.2 ≤7.50.2
curl 7.86.0 ≤7.86.0
curl 7.21.3 ≤7.21.3
curl 7.50.3 ≤7.50.3
curl 8.10.0 ≤8.10.0
curl 7.19.4 ≤7.19.4
curl 7.52.0 ≤7.52.0
curl 7.19.6 ≤7.19.6
curl 7.18.1 ≤7.18.1
curl 7.11.1 ≤7.11.1
curl 8.1.2 ≤8.1.2
curl 7.15.2 ≤7.15.2
curl 7.14.0 ≤7.14.0
curl 7.59.0 ≤7.59.0
curl 7.12.0 ≤7.12.0
curl 8.14.1 ≤8.14.1
curl 7.40.0 ≤7.40.0
curl 7.19.3 ≤7.19.3
curl 7.11.2 ≤7.11.2
curl 7.42.0 ≤7.42.0
curl 7.39.0 ≤7.39.0
curl 7.21.5 ≤7.21.5
curl 7.16.2 ≤7.16.2
curl 7.54.0 ≤7.54.0
curl 7.69.1 ≤7.69.1
curl 7.20.1 ≤7.20.1
curl 7.70.0 ≤7.70.0
curl 7.48.0 ≤7.48.0
curl 7.37.1 ≤7.37.1
curl 7.82.0 ≤7.82.0
curl 8.11.0 ≤8.11.0
curl 7.19.5 ≤7.19.5
curl 7.38.0 ≤7.38.0
curl 7.47.1 ≤7.47.1
curl 7.21.4 ≤7.21.4
curl 7.29.0 ≤7.29.0
curl 7.65.0 ≤7.65.0
curl 7.87.0 ≤7.87.0
curl 7.15.4 ≤7.15.4
curl 7.76.1 ≤7.76.1
curl 7.13.0 ≤7.13.0
curl 7.57.0 ≤7.57.0
curl 7.14.1 ≤7.14.1
curl 8.1.0 ≤8.1.0
curl 7.63.0 ≤7.63.0
curl 7.78.0 ≤7.78.0
curl 7.16.4 ≤7.16.4
curl 7.88.1 ≤7.88.1
curl 8.8.0 ≤8.8.0
curl 7.55.1 ≤7.55.1
curl 8.2.1 ≤8.2.1
curl 7.69.0 ≤7.69.0
curl 7.76.0 ≤7.76.0
curl 8.12.1 ≤8.12.1
curl 7.88.0 ≤7.88.0
curl 7.18.2 ≤7.18.2
curl 7.11.0 ≤7.11.0
curl 7.15.5 ≤7.15.5
curl 8.15.0 ≤8.15.0
curl 8.7.0 ≤8.7.0
curl 8.9.1 ≤8.9.1
curl 7.71.0 ≤7.71.0
curl 7.50.1 ≤7.50.1
curl 8.9.0 ≤8.9.0
curl 7.33.0 ≤7.33.0
curl 7.53.1 ≤7.53.1
curl 7.41.0 ≤7.41.0
curl 8.6.0 ≤8.6.0
curl 7.21.1 ≤7.21.1
curl 7.47.0 ≤7.47.0
curl 7.65.3 ≤7.65.3
curl 7.79.0 ≤7.79.0
curl 8.12.0 ≤8.12.0
curl 7.10.8 ≤7.10.8
curl 7.42.1 ≤7.42.1
curl 7.28.1 ≤7.28.1
curl 7.72.0 ≤7.72.0

Affected Packages

euvd curl no fix

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)

Affects your stack

Affects 1 package in euvd

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

curl (CPE: cpe:2.3:a:haxx:curl:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*) implements connection pooling and reuse as a core performance optimization: rather than tearing down and re-establishing TCP/TLS connections for each request, connections are cached and reused across transfers. HTTP Negotiate authentication (RFC 4559) is a SPNEGO-based scheme that wraps Kerberos or NTLM, negotiating a session-level security context over the connection itself rather than per-request. CWE-613 (Insufficient Session Expiration) is the root cause class: when curl pools a connection that carried a Negotiate authentication handshake, it fails to properly enforce that the negotiated security context is no longer valid or applicable when the connection is later reused for a different request - effectively treating a session-bound credential exchange as perpetually reusable. This is structurally similar to the sibling CVE-2026-5773 (SMB connection reuse) and CVE-2026-4873 (TLS requirement bypass on reuse) disclosed in the same coordinated batch, suggesting a systemic pattern in curl's connection-reuse logic across protocols.

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  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

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Severity by source

NVD PRIMARY 6.5 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N
SUSE MEDIUM
Red Hat 6.5 MEDIUM

Primary rating from NVD.

CVSS VectorNVD

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
High
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
High
Availability
None

Lifecycle Timeline

2
CVSS changed
May 13, 2026 - 18:22 NVD
6.5 (MEDIUM)
CVE Published
May 08, 2026 - 06:45 nvd
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

Description PRE-NVD

Disclosed via oss-security. NVD scoring and full description are pending.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.0%
Top 87% exploitable
Social Media
5
Sightings
Data Quality
7 sources
Confidence: High

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity MEDIUM
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.0%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Scheduled
Exploitation
None
System Exposure· derived
Open
Automatable
No
Human Impact· derived
Medium
Technical Impact
Partial

Priority Score

32
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +32
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.

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Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Medium
Product Status
Container suse/manager/4.3/proxy-httpd:4.3.17.9.76.18 Container suse/manager/4.3/proxy-salt-broker:4.3.17.9.66.20 Container suse/sle-micro-rancher/5.3:latest Container suse/sle-micro-rancher/5.4:5.4.4.5.106 Container suse/sle-micro/5.3/toolbox:16.3-6.11.222 Container suse/sle-micro/5.4/toolbox:16.3-5.19.222 Container suse/sle-micro/5.5/toolbox:16.3-3.12.133 Container suse/sle-micro/base-5.5:2.0.4-5.8.271 Image SLES15-SP4-BYOS Image SLES15-SP4-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP4-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP4-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP4-CHOST-BYOS Image SLES15-SP4-CHOST-BYOS-Aliyun Image SLES15-SP4-CHOST-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP4-CHOST-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP4-CHOST-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP4-CHOST-BYOS-SAP-CCloud Image SLES15-SP4-HPC-BYOS Image SLES15-SP4-HPC-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP4-HPC-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP4-HPC-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP4-HPC-EC2 Image SLES15-SP4-HPC-GCE Image SLES15-SP4-Hardened-BYOS Image SLES15-SP4-Hardened-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP4-Hardened-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP4-Hardened-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-BYOS Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-Hardened Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-Hardened-Azure Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-Hardened-BYOS Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-Hardened-GCE Image SLES15-SP5-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP5-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP5-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP5-CHOST-BYOS-Aliyun Image SLES15-SP5-CHOST-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP5-CHOST-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP5-CHOST-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP5-CHOST-BYOS-GDC Image SLES15-SP5-CHOST-BYOS-SAP-CCloud Image SLES15-SP5-EC2 Image SLES15-SP5-GCE Image SLES15-SP5-HPC-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP5-HPC-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP5-HPC-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP5-Hardened-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP5-Hardened-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP5-Hardened-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP5-SAP-Azure-3P Image SLES15-SP5-SAP-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP5-SAP-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP5-SAP-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP5-SAP-Hardened-Azure Image SLES15-SP5-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP5-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP5-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP5-SAP-Hardened-GCE Affected
Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/baremetal-os-container:2.1.3-6.172 Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/kvm-os-container:2.1.3-6.155 Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/rt-os-container:2.1.3-7.168 Affected
Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container:2.1.3-7.139 Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/toolbox:13.2-9.105 Image SL-Micro Affected
Container suse/sl-micro/6.1/baremetal-os-container:2.2.1-7.102 Container suse/sl-micro/6.1/kvm-os-container:2.2.1-5.127 Container suse/sl-micro/6.1/rt-os-container:2.2.1-5.116 Affected
Container suse/sl-micro/6.1/base-os-container:2.2.1-5.126 Image SL-Micro-Azure Image SL-Micro-BYOS-Azure Image SL-Micro-BYOS-EC2 Image SL-Micro-BYOS-GCE Image SL-Micro-EC2 Image SUSE-Multi-Linux-Manager-Proxy-BYOS-Azure Image SUSE-Multi-Linux-Manager-Proxy-BYOS-EC2 Image SUSE-Multi-Linux-Manager-Proxy-BYOS-GCE Image SUSE-Multi-Linux-Manager-Server-Azure-llc Image SUSE-Multi-Linux-Manager-Server-Azure-ltd Image SUSE-Multi-Linux-Manager-Server-BYOS-Azure Image SUSE-Multi-Linux-Manager-Server-BYOS-EC2 Image SUSE-Multi-Linux-Manager-Server-BYOS-GCE Image SUSE-Multi-Linux-Manager-Server-EC2-llc Image SUSE-Multi-Linux-Manager-Server-EC2-ltd Affected

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