CVE-2026-33896
HighCVSS 7.4Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk27th percentile - higher than 27% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability in node-forge before version 1.4.0 allows bypassing RFC 5280 basicConstraints requirements during certificate chain verification. The lack of enforcement enables any leaf certificate (without basicConstraints and keyUsage extensions) to act as a CA and sign other certificates, which node-forge will accept as valid.
Risk Assessment
The organization may accept forged certificates signed by an unauthorized entity, leading to compromised trust in TLS communication and potential man-in-the-middle attacks.
Recommendation
Immediately update node-forge to version 1.4.0 or later, which enforces RFC 5280 compliance.
Other vulnerabilities in node-forge
See all- CVE-2026-33895High
The node-forge library before version 1.4.0 accepts non-canonical Ed25519 signatures where the scalar S is not reduced modulo the group order (S >= L). Both a valid signature and its S+L variant are considered valid, while the OpenSSL-backed implementation rejects the S+L variant as per the specification.
- CVE-2026-33894High
The node-forge library before version 1.4.0 has a vulnerability in RSASSA PKCS#1 v1.5 signature verification for low public exponent keys (e=3). Attackers can forge signatures by inserting garbage bytes into the ASN structure, enabling Bleichenbacher-style forgery. This issue is similar to CVE-2022-24771 but differs in the location of the inserted bytes.
- CVE-2026-33891High
A Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability exists in node-forge before version 1.4.0 due to an infinite loop in the BigInteger.modInverse() function. Calling this function with a zero value causes the process to hang indefinitely and consume 100% CPU.
Original NVD description (English source)
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.