Medium severity · published Jun 25, 2026
CVE-2026-55962
TLS 1.3 post-handshake authentication: server accepts Finished without client Certificate/CertificateVerify
6.5
CVSS
0.2%
EPSS
No
On KEV
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.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.2% · higher than 14% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
WO
wolfSSL · wolfSSL
5.5.4 through 5.9.1 · source: vendor, NVD
Affected product
WO
wolfSSL
wolfSSL
More from wolfSSL
9.8
CVE-2026-7531
Use-after-free in PQC hybrid key-share handling
9.8
CVE-2026-5264
DTLS 1.3 ACK heap buffer overflow
9.8
CVE-2026-5187
Heap Out-of-Bounds Write in DecodeObjectId() in wolfSSL
9.8
CVE-2026-4395
Heap-based buffer overflow in wc_ecc_import_x963_ex KCAPI path
9.8
CVE-2026-3849
Buffer Overflow in HPKE via Oversized ECH Config