CVE-2026-27586

Severity CVSS v4.0:

HIGH

Type:

Unavailable / Other

Publication date:

24/02/2026

Last modified:

25/02/2026

Description

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.

Impact

Vector 4.0

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 CVSS v4.0 Severity and Metrics:

Base Score: 8.80 HIGH
Vector: 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

Attack Vector (AV): Network
Attack Complexity (AC): Low
Attack Requirements (AT): None
Privileges Required (PR): None
User Interaction (UI): None
Confidentiality (VC): High
Integrity (VI): High
Availability (VA): None
Confidentiality (SC): None
Integrity (SI): None
Availability (SA): None
Exploit Maturity (E): POC

Base Score 4.0

8.80

Severity 4.0

HIGH

Vector 3.x

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N CVSS v3.1 Severity and Metrics:

Base Score: 9.10 CRITICAL
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Attack Vector (AV): Network
Attack Complexity (AC): Low
Privileges Required (PR): None
User Interaction (UI): None
Scope (S): Unchanged
Confidentiality (C): High
Integrity (I): High
Availability (A): None