CVE-2026-55962

Published Jun 25, 2026

Last updated 25 days ago

Overview

Description
TLS 1.3 post-handshake authentication (PHA) issue where a server could accept a client's Finished message without the client having sent a Certificate and CertificateVerify. The post-handshake-auth exemption that allows an empty/absent peer certificate was only intended for the initial handshake, but it was also being applied while a post-handshake CertificateRequest was still outstanding. The check is now scoped to the initial handshake only: on the server, once a post-handshake CertificateRequest has been sent (certReqCtx is set), a peer certificate and a valid CertificateVerify are required again before the Finished is accepted, with empty-certificate handling following the configured verify mode (FAIL_IF_NO_PEER_CERT) just as during first-handshake client authentication. Only affects TLS 1.3 servers built with post-handshake authentication support (WOLFSSL_POST_HANDSHAKE_AUTH / --enable-postauth, included in --enable-all) that enable WOLFSSL_VERIFY_POST_HANDSHAKE and request a client certificate after the handshake via wolfSSL_request_certificate(). Clients, and servers that do not use post-handshake authentication, are unaffected.
Source
facts@wolfssl.com
NVD status
Analyzed
Products
wolfssl

Risk scores

CVSS 4.0

Type
Secondary
Base score
6
Impact score
-
Exploitability score
-
Vector string
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/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
Severity
MEDIUM

CVSS 3.1

Type
Primary
Base score
6.5
Impact score
3.6
Exploitability score
2.8
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Severity
MEDIUM

Weaknesses

facts@wolfssl.com
CWE-287
nvd@nist.gov
NVD-CWE-noinfo

Social media

Hype score
Not currently trending

Configurations