Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
-
AccessControl name-constrained subordinate CA
-
DeliveryIssue cert for unauthorized domain
-
ExploitPresent forged chain to GnuTLS relying party
-
ExecutionName-constraint validation incompletely enforced
-
ImpactImpersonate domain and intercept TLS traffic
Vulnerability Assessment
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires the attacker to already control a subordinate Certificate Authority whose certificate carries name constraints intended to restrict it to a permitted domain namespace - this pre-established trusted-CA position is the core prerequisite and is not attainable by an ordinary remote attacker. The vulnerable code path is GnuTLS v3.8.13's incomplete enforcement of X.509 name constraints (RFC 5280 §4.2.1.10 / §6.1.4) during certificate-chain validation, so the target is any relying party using that version to validate chains. Limiting factors: the attacker must operate a constrained intermediate CA (a significant barrier reflected in AC:H), the victim must use the vulnerable GnuTLS version for validation, and impact is confined to abusing trust rather than compromising the GnuTLS host itself; no user interaction is required once a forged certificate is presented. |
| Impact | This is a low-urgency, low-real-risk issue despite its security-relevant nature. The provided CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N = 3.7, Low) reflects high attack complexity and limited impact, and this aligns with the other signals: EPSS is 0.12% (2nd percentile), there is no CISA KEV listing (not actively exploited), and no confirmed public exploit. The signals are therefore consistent - all point to a theoretical/targeted PKI-trust weakness rather than a mass-exploitable flaw. The key limiting factor is the precondition embedded in the description: the attacker must already control a subordinate Certificate Authority that is subject to name constraints - a high-privilege, pre-established trust position that very few attackers possess, which justifies AC:H and explains the low EPSS. One point of tension worth flagging: the official vector rates impact as C:L/I:N/A:N, which understates the real-world consequence - bypassing name-constraint (cross-domain PKI) restrictions to issue unauthorized certificates primarily undermines INTEGRITY of the trust chain and can enable impersonation/MITM, so an integrity impact of N appears low; verify impact scoping with the vendor/NVD. No CWE was assigned and product/version metadata in the feed are placeholders, so some fields are inferred from the description text (GnuTLS 3.8.13) rather than confirmed CPE data. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker who operates a subordinate CA that has been issued with name constraints (intended to limit it to a specific domain namespace) exploits GnuTLS 3.8.13's incomplete name-constraint enforcement to issue a certificate for a domain outside its permitted scope. When a victim relying party validating the chain with vulnerable GnuTLS accepts the forged certificate, the attacker can impersonate the unauthorized domain and intercept or tamper with TLS-protected traffic. No public working exploit is identified, though a referenced GitHub gist may contain technical analysis or proof-of-concept material (unverified). |
Get an e-mail when this CVE is exploited, patched or re-scored. Free account.
Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 19, 2026
GnuTLS 3.8.13 incompletely enforces X.509 name constraints during certificate-chain validation, allowing an attacker who already controls a constrained subordinate Certificate Authority to issue certificates for domains outside its permitted namespace and thereby bypass cross-domain PKI restrictions. The victim must be a relying party using the affected version to validate such a chain; the forged certificate is then accepted without user interaction, yielding limited confidentiality and integrity impact. No public exploit code or confirmed active exploitation was identified at time of analysis, and EPSS is very low (0.12%, 2nd percentile), while our independent assessment rates the issue more severely than the vendor-published CVSS 3.7 because successful abuse of a trusted-CA position fully defeats the name-constraint control.
RemediationAI
No vendor-released patch with a confirmed fixed version is identifiable from the available data, so the primary action is to determine your installed GnuTLS version and upgrade beyond 3.8.13 as soon as the upstream GnuTLS project publishes a corrected release, tracking the NVD entry (https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-88648) and VulDB advisory (https://vuldb.com/vuln/415549) for the exact version number rather than assuming one. Where upgrading is not yet possible, the most effective compensating control is to audit and, where feasible, remove constrained subordinate CA certificates from your trust stores - particularly intermediates issued by third parties whose name constraints you rely on - since the vulnerability can only be exercised through such a CA; the trade-off is that removing intermediates may break legitimate certificate chains that depend on them. As a second layer, pin the expected issuer or subject names for high-value TLS endpoints, or perform validation with an independent PKI library that correctly enforces RFC 5280 name constraints, accepting the added deployment complexity and the risk of pinning-related outages during certificate rotation. Logging and alerting on chains that contain name-constrained intermediates can also surface attempted abuse without blocking legitimate traffic.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affects your stack
Find out whether the stacks and servers you run are on an affected version.
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
X.509 name constraints (RFC 5280 §4.2.1.10) are the mechanism by which a CA that issues a subordinate CA certificate can confine that subordinate's authority to a specific namespace - for example, restricting an intermediate CA to the '.example.com' domain. Section 6.1.4 of RFC 5280 defines exactly how a validating implementation must intersect and enforce those permitted/excluded subtrees while processing the certification path. GnuTLS 3.8.13's implementation of this logic is incomplete, meaning a chain built under an attacker-held constrained intermediate may be accepted for subject names that fall outside the constraints, effectively neutralizing a core cross-domain trust boundary of the Web PKI. The root cause class is an authorization/trust-boundary enforcement gap in certificate path validation rather than memory corruption: the library does not crash or execute attacker code, it simply concludes 'valid' for a chain that should be rejected. Because the flaw lives in the validation code path, every application, TLS server, client, or PKI tooling built on the affected GnuTLS release inherits the weakness. Noteworthy context: our independent assessment assigns C:H/I:H rather than the vendor's C:L/I:N, since a certificate accepted outside its constrained namespace can be used to impersonate services and sign data; exploitation nevertheless hinges on the attacker already holding a constrained subordinate CA certificate trusted by the target, a non-trivial pre-existing position reflected in AC:H.
Know when Gnutls gets its next vulnerability
- Watch products and get an email when something new is published
- Check this CVE against your own stack and servers
- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
No credit card · 7-day full trial
Severity by source
AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
AC:H and PR:N because the attacker needs no privileges on the relying party but must control a constrained subordinate CA (a high-complexity precondition); forged trusted certs enable impersonation/MITM, giving high confidentiality and integrity impact, no availability impact.
Primary rating from Vendor (mitre).
CVSS VectorVendor: mitre
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionCVE.org
Incomplete X.509 implementation in GnuTLS v3.8.13 allows attackers controlling a subordinate Certificate Authority to bypass cross-domain PKI restrictions and issue unauthorized certificates.
Threat Intelligence Overview
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.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Authentication bypass attacks exploit flaws in the verification mechanisms that control access to systems and applications.
A flaw was found in gnutls. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentic
Buffer overflow in the read_server_hello function in lib/gnutls_handshake.c in GnuTLS before 3.1.25, 3.2.x before 3.2.15
An issue was discovered in GnuTLS before 3.6.15. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploita
A vulnerability was found in GnuTLS. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no auth
Alpine Linux: gnutls fixed in 3.8.3-r0
Double free vulnerability in libgnutls in GnuTLS before 3.0.14 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (app
A timing side-channel in the handling of RSA ClientKeyExchange messages was discovered in GnuTLS. Rated high severity (C
It was discovered in gnutls before version 3.6.7 upstream that there is an uninitialized pointer access in gnutls versio
A vulnerability was found in gnutls versions from 3.5.8 before 3.6.7. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability
The asn1_get_length_der function in decoding.c in GNU Libtasn1 before 2.12, as used in GnuTLS before 3.0.16 and other pr
Double free vulnerability in the gnutls_x509_ext_import_proxy function in GnuTLS before 3.3.26 and 3.5.x before 3.5.8 al
gnutls_cipher.c in libgnutls in GnuTLS before 2.12.17 and 3.x before 3.0.15 does not properly handle data encrypted with
EUVD-2026-95205
GHSA-gxj4-87qm-hmc3
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
VulDB
Exploit-DB