Critical severity · published Oct 7, 2026
CVE-2026-81535
wolfSSH SSH client accepts unsolicited forwarded-tcpip channel opens without an authorization check
9.1
CVSS
0.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
In wolfSSH through 1.5.0 built with --enable-fwd, DoChannelOpen() in src/internal.c gates only direct-tcpip channel opens with the forwarding policy callback. forwarded-tcpip opens are admitted without an authorization check and are not capped in number, allowing a malicious SSH peer to make an endpoint allocate unbounded per-channel buffers for forwarding channels the application never authorized. A client also does not check a forwarded-tcpip open against the forwards it registered with a tcpip-forward request, as RFC 4254 section 7.2 requires, so a malicious server can open forwarding channels for addresses and ports the client never asked it to forward.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.3% · higher than 23% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
WO
wolfSSH · wolfSSL Inc.
1.4.8 through 1.5.0 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-81535
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-81535
patch
https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssh/commit/616eb681e70759c30c3ba158f2b18d7bd954def8
patch
https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssh/commit/e396a0a4b6b367f10270287446a4be0071742b5c
patch
https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssh/commit/79a7f299337a28aa561409688a268d0efe6e295c
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