Forge: X.509 pathLenConstraint not enforced by verifyCertificateChain() for CA certificates without keyUsage (digitalbazaar forge)
At a glance
- Source
- NVD
- EPSS
- EPSS 0.17 % · percentile 6 ()
- State
- PUBLISHED
- Published
- Updated
- Assigner
- GitHub_M
- NVD status
- Undergoing Analysis
Description
Forge (also called node-forge) is a native implementation of Transport Layer Security in JavaScript. Prior to 1.4.1, node-forge enforced an X.509 CA certificate's basicConstraints.pathLenConstraint only when that certificate also carried a keyUsage extension. Exploitation requires a path-length-constrained CA without keyUsage that chains to a root trusted by the application, and an attacker who holds that CA's private key or obtains a subordinate CA certificate from it. The attacker could then construct a chain exceeding the declared path length that still passed pki.verifyCertificateChain(). Public web PKI CA certificates normally include keyUsage; private PKIs with CA certificates created without it are more likely to be affected. This issue is fixed in version 1.4.1.
Weaknesses (CWE)
- CWE-295 — Improper Certificate Validation
References
Scores
| Version | Score | Vector | Scored by |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS 3.1 | MEDIUM 5.9 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N | GitHub_M |
| CVSS 3.1 | MEDIUM 5.9 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N | NVD · security-advisories@github.com (Secondary) |
European references
- ENISA EUVD · EUVD-2026-113366
- GCVE · GCVE-0-2026-119189
Affected products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
| digitalbazaar · forge | affected < 1.4.1 |
Sources
| Source | Licence |
|---|---|
| CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5) | CVE Program Terms of Use |
| EPSS (FIRST.org) | FIRST — attribution requested |
| ENISA EUVD | ENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged |
| NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feeds | Public domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD |