CVE-2026-27586CWE-755

Caddy's mTLS client authentication silently fails open when CA certificate file is missing or malformed

High · published February 24, 2026

CVSS v4.0
8.8
EPSS
0%
Percentile
35.9
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v4.0
8.8 · 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
EPSS
0.00427 · 35.9th percentile
Weakness
CWE-755 · Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions
Published
2026-02-24T16:08Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 24 FEB 16:08Z
    Caddy's mTLS client authentication silently fails open when CA certificate file is missing or malformed
    cvelistv5