CVE-2026-34580 | Botan has a certificate authentication bypass due to trust anchor confusion

Botan is a C++ cryptography library. In 3.11.0, the function Certificate_Store::certificate_known had a misleading name; it would return true if any certificate in the store had a DN (and subject key identifier, if set) matching that of the argument. It did not check that the cert it found and the cert it was passed were actually the same certificate. In 3.11.0 an extension of path validation logic was made which assumed that certificate_known only returned true if the certificates were in fact identical. The impact is that if an end entity certificate is presented, and its DN (and subject key identifier, if set) match that of any trusted root, the end entity certificate is accepted immediately as if it itself were a trusted root. , This vulnerability is fixed in 3.11.1.

Published: 2026-04-07 Last update: 2026-04-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2026-34580 is rated Low Risk (39.4/100): CVSS Critical severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.02%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-34580

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-04-08 0.02%

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-34580

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
9.3 4.0 CRITICAL
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and stable.
Attack requirements (AT:N)
No additional preconditions are required beyond normal reachability.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:N)
No user interaction is required.
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:H)
High confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:H)
High integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:H)
High availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:N)
No confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:N)
No integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:N)
No availability impact on subsequent systems.
Exploit maturity (threat) (E:X)
Not defined: no reliable threat intelligence; scoring assumes the worst case (equivalent to Attacked).
Confidentiality requirement (CR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Integrity requirement (IR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Availability requirement (AR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Modified attack vector (MAV:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Vector (AV).
Modified attack complexity (MAC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Complexity (AC).
Modified attack requirements (MAT:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Requirements (AT).
Modified privileges required (MPR:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Privileges Required (PR).
Modified user interaction (MUI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base User Interaction (UI).
Modified vulnerable system confidentiality impact (MVC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VC metric.
Modified vulnerable system integrity impact (MVI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VI metric.
Modified vulnerable system availability impact (MVA:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VA metric.
Modified subsequent system confidentiality impact (MSC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SC metric.
Modified subsequent system integrity impact (MSI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SI metric.
Modified subsequent system availability impact (MSA:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SA metric.
Safety (supplemental) (S:X)
Not evaluated.
Automatable (supplemental) (AU:X)
Not evaluated.
Recovery (supplemental) (R:X)
Not evaluated.
Value density (supplemental) (V:X)
Not evaluated.
Vulnerability response effort (supplemental) (RE:X)
Not evaluated.
Provider urgency (supplemental) (U:X)
Not evaluated.
[email protected]
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
3.9 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-34580

OS Trackers for CVE-2026-34580

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2026-34580 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (botan3), 3 status rows across 3 suites (forky, sid, trixie): resolved 3. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-34580
redhat high https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-34580
suse critical CVE-2026-34580 severity critical: SUSE including 2 source package names (Botan, libbotan-devel), 3 product×package rows across 2 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5-LTSS, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5-LTSS Extended Security): Known Not Affected 3. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-34580/
ubuntu medium CVE-2026-34580 medium priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (botan, botan3), 10 status rows across 6 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, questing, upstream): needs-triage 7, DNE 2, not-affected 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-34580

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-34580

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
botan_project botan 3.11.0 cpe:2.3:a:botan_project:botan:3.11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2026-34580

cvelogic Threat Intelligence