CVE-2026-34500
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Description
A flaw was found in Apache Tomcat where OCSP-based certificate validation may incorrectly soft-fail during CLIENT_CERT authentication, even when soft-fail is disabled, under certain FFM-related execution paths. This can result in client certificates being accepted despite failed or unverifiable revocation checks, weakening certificate validation in specific mTLS configurations.
Statement
This flaw is rated Moderate rather than Important flaw because its impact is highly conditional and configuration-dependent, not broadly exploitable. The issue only manifests when CLIENT_CERT authentication, OCSP revocation checking, and soft-fail disabled are all explicitly configured, and even then only along specific execution paths involving the FFM API. There is no direct remote exploit primitive—an attacker would already need access to a client certificate that triggers an OCSP validation failure scenario (e.g., responder unavailability or malformed response) to potentially bypass revocation enforcement. Importantly, the vulnerability does not enable certificate forgery, private key compromise, or bypass of TLS authentication itself; it weakens enforcement of revocation status under edge conditions.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.
Additional information
- This content is not included.Bugzilla 2457043: Apache Tomcat: Apache Tomcat: Authentication bypass via client certificate misconfiguration
- Content from cwe.mitre.org is not included.CWE-303: Incorrect Implementation of Authentication Algorithm
External References
Affected Packages and Issued Red Hat Security Errata
Unless explicitly stated as not affected, all previous versions of packages in any minor update stream of a product listed here should be assumed vulnerable, although may not have been subject to full analysis.
| Products / Services | Components | State | Errata |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | tomcat | Fix deferred | |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | tomcat9 | Fixed | RHSA-2026:36790 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | tomcat6 | Out of support scope | |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | tomcat | Fix deferred | |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | pki-deps:10.6/pki-servlet-engine | Fix deferred | |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | tomcat | Fix deferred | |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | pki-servlet-engine | Fix deferred | |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | tomcat | Fix deferred | |
| Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5 | tomcat | Under investigation | |
| Red Hat JBoss Web Server 6.2 on RHEL 10 | jws6-tomcat | Fixed | RHSA-2026:20405 |
| Red Hat JBoss Web Server 6.2 on RHEL 8 | jws6-tomcat | Fixed | RHSA-2026:20405 |
| Red Hat JBoss Web Server 6.2 on RHEL 9 | jws6-tomcat | Fixed | RHSA-2026:20405 |
| Red Hat JBoss Web Server 6.2.3 | tomcat | Fixed | RHSA-2026:20406 |
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authorities (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications ).
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS v3 Base Score | 5.9 | N/A | 6.5 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | High | N/A | High |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | None |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality Impact | High | N/A | High |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | Low |
| Availability Impact | None | N/A | None |
CVSS v3 Vector
Red Hat CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
cve.org CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?
For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.
My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?
- "Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
- "Affected" means that our Analysis Team has determined that this product is affected by this vulnerability and might release a fix to address this in the near future.
What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?
Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
- Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
- Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
- Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?
Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
- Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
- Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
- Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.
What is a mitigation?
I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?
Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?
My product is listed as "Out of Support Scope". What does this mean?
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