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Vulnerability · Published Mar 27, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

CVE-2026-33896Forge has a basicConstraints bypass in its certificate chain verification (RFC 5280 violation)

High 7.4

In plain English

A high-severity improper certificate validation in forge from digitalbazaar. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 30% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)7.4High
Exploit odds (30 days)0.4%top 69.9% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: poc
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

Forge (also called `node-forge`) is a native implementation of Transport Layer Security in JavaScript. Prior to version 1.4.0, `pki.verifyCertificateChain()` does not enforce RFC 5280 basicConstraints requirements when an intermediate certificate lacks both the `basicConstraints` and `keyUsage` extensions. This allows any leaf certificate (without these extensions) to act as a CA and sign other certificates, which node-forge will accept as valid. Version 1.4.0 patches the issue.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSnode-node-forgeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2026-33896
npmnode-forge1.4.0GHSA-2328-f5f3-gj25

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
digitalbazaar forge < 1.4.0

Weakness: CWE-295 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

References