CVE-2026-115693

Custom cacerts or cacertfile do not restrict trust to the pinned CA in hackney

Published Oct 26, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 9.1 Critical EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability in hackney_ssl in benoitc hackney allows an on-path attacker to impersonate a server pinned to a private certificate authority via a certificate chain that ends in a publicly trusted root. hackney adds {partial_chain, fun hackney_ssl:partial_chain/1} to every verify_peer configuration. The callback returns any certificate in the peer chain whose public key matches a root in the bundled certifi store as the trust anchor, and OTP honours that callback over the configured cacerts. hackney_ssl:merge_ssl_opts/3 kept the callback when the caller replaced the trust store with cacerts or cacertfile in ssl_options, so a connection pinned to a private CA still accepted any chain that carried a publicly trusted root.

The hostname check still applies, so the attacker needs a publicly trusted certificate for the pinned hostname.

This issue affects hackney: from 1.24.0 before 4.9.0.

Remediation

Vendor Workaround

Pass your own {partial_chain, Fun} in ssl_options alongside cacerts or cacertfile. A caller-supplied partial_chain replaces hackney's in the merge, and a callback that returns unknown_ca makes OTP validate against the configured cacerts only.

Tracking

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Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'total'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability in hackney_ssl in benoitc hackney allows an on-path attacker to impersonate a server pinned to a private certificate authority via a certificate chain that ends in a publicly trusted root. hackney adds {partial_chain, fun hackney_ssl:partial_chain/1} to every verify_peer configuration. The callback returns any certificate in the peer chain whose public key matches a root in the bundled certifi store as the trust anchor, and OTP honours that callback over the configured cacerts. hackney_ssl:merge_ssl_opts/3 kept the callback when the caller replaced the trust store with cacerts or cacertfile in ssl_options, so a connection pinned to a private CA still accepted any chain that carried a publicly trusted root. The hostname check still applies, so the attacker needs a publicly trusted certificate for the pinned hostname. This issue affects hackney: from 1.24.0 before 4.9.0.
Title Custom cacerts or cacertfile do not restrict trust to the pinned CA in hackney
First Time appeared Benoitc
Benoitc hackney
Weaknesses CWE-295
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:benoitc:hackney:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Benoitc
Benoitc hackney
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 9.1, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
EEF
Published
Updated
Nov 2, 2026, 7:43 PM
Reserved
Oct 25, 2026, 10:45 AM
Status
Awaiting Analysis
Published
Oct 26, 2026, 2:16 PM
Modified
Nov 2, 2026, 8:17 PM