Name constraint bypass via multi-value RDN flattening in Botan X.509
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- High
- Attack requirements
- Present
- Impact type
- Spoofing
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · Low · None
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-295.
Summary
Botan before 3.13.0, a C++ cryptography library, flattens multi-value Relative Distinguished Names in its X.509 decoder before name-constraint checks (CWE-295). An attacker controlling a name-constrained intermediate CA can issue a certificate whose second Common Name is accepted as a hostname when the certificate has no subjectAlternativeName extension. Exposure is limited to deployments that use DN name constraints, which are uncommon outside internal PKIs.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-06
Description from the CNA
Botan is a C++ cryptography library. Prior to 3.13.0, Botan's X.509 Distinguished Name decoder flattens the Attribute-Value Assertions in each Relative Distinguished Name and loses multi-value RDN grouping before DN name-constraint enforcement. An attacker controlling a name-constrained intermediate CA can issue a certificate with a multi-value RDN whose first Common Name matches the permitted constraint and whose second Common Name is attacker-chosen, causing the constraint check to accept the flattened first value. If the certificate contains no subjectAlternativeName extension, the second Common Name can then be accepted as a hostname; Botan does not fall back to Common Name hostname matching when any subjectAlternativeName is present. The exposure is limited to deployments using DN name constraints, which are uncommon outside internal PKIs, and to certificates without a subjectAlternativeName. This issue is fixed in version 3.13.0.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
Remediation
Upgrade Botan to version 3.13.0, the fixed version listed for this issue.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-06
- Fix · CNA botan (randombit) Fixed in 3.13.0
Timeline
- 2026-11-06 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-48057
References
More randombit vulnerabilities
- TI-2024-33818 Botan before 3.6.0, when certain GCC versions are used, has a compiler-induced… CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.9
- TI-2024-33817 Botan before 3.6.0, when certain LLVM versions are used, has compiler-induced… CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.9
- TI-2016-02004 Integer overflow in the PointGFp constructor in Botan before 1.10.11 and 1.11.x before… CVSS 3.0CRITICAL 9.8
- TI-2016-02005 Heap-based buffer overflow in the P-521 reduction function in Botan 1.11.x before 1.11.27… CVSS 3.0CRITICAL 9.8
- TI-2026-26828 Botan has a certificate authentication bypass due to trust anchor confusion CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.3
- TI-2016-07479 In Botan 1.8.0 through 1.11.33, when decoding BER data an integer overflow could occur… CVSS 3.0CRITICAL 9.8
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences