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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.1

CVE-2026-27586 json

Caddy's mTLS client authentication silently fails open when CA certificate file is missing or malformed

published 2026-02-24 8 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-hffm-g8v7-wrv7 , GO-2026-4539 , EUVD-2026-8541

cvss
9.1
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 22%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Caddy is an extensible server platform that uses TLS by default. Prior to version 2.11.1, two swallowed errors in `ClientAuthentication.provision()` cause mTLS client certificate authentication to silently fail open when a CA certificate file is missing, unreadable, or malformed. The server starts without error but accepts any client certificate signed by any system-trusted CA, completely bypassing the intended private CA trust boundary. Any deployment using `trusted_ca_cert_file` or `trusted_ca_certs_pem_files` for mTLS will silently degrade to accepting any system-trusted client certificate if the CA file becomes unavailable. This can happen due to a typo in the path, file rotation, corruption, or permission changes. The server gives no indication that mTLS is misconfigured. Version 2.11.1 fixes the vulnerability.

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/caddyserver/caddy/v2 2.11.1
  • caddyserver caddy 2.11.1
  • caddy Debian 14 2.11.2-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-27586

  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Leap 15.6 0.0.20260226T182644-150000.1.149.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:0757-1

  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Leap 16.0 0.0.20260723T184607-160000.1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21483-1

  • caddy Alpine 3.23 2.11.2-r0
  • caddy Alpine 3.24 2.11.1-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2026-27586

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-27586 updated cvss 8.2

github.com/caddyserver/caddy/v2/modules/caddytls: Caddy: Authentication bypass via mTLS client certificate validation failure

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
8 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.29% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 22% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy/security/advisories/GHSA-hffm-g8v7-wrv7 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • gist.github.com https://gist.github.com/moscowchill/9566c79c76c0b64c57f8bd0716f97c48 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 8.8 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P
CNA 4.0 8.8 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P/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 3.1 9.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/caddyserver/caddy/v2
<2.11.1
2.11.1

Affected products

  • caddyserver caddy

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-755 Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.