CVE-2026-55962
TLS 1.3 post-handshake authentication: server accepts Finished without client Certificate/CertificateVerify
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.
INFO
Published Date :
June 25, 2026, 9:12 p.m.
Last Modified :
June 25, 2026, 9:12 p.m.
Remotely Exploit :
Yes !
Source :
wolfSSL
Affected Products
The following products are affected by CVE-2026-55962
vulnerability.
Even if cvefeed.io is aware of the exact versions of the
products
that
are
affected, the information is not represented in the table below.
No affected product recoded yet
CVSS Scores
| Score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability Score | Impact Score | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS 4.0 | MEDIUM | 50d2cd11-d01a-48ed-9441-5bfce9d63b27 |
Solution
- Update TLS server software to the latest version.
- Configure TLS server to properly handle client certificates.
- Ensure post-handshake authentication is correctly scoped.
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CVE-2026-55962 vulnerability anywhere in the article.