Improper Certificate Validation Affecting node-forge package, versions <1.4.1
Threat Intelligence
Snyk has a proof-of-concept or detailed explanation of how to exploit this vulnerability.
The probability is the direct output of the EPSS model, and conveys an overall sense of the threat of exploitation in the wild. The percentile measures the EPSS probability relative to all known EPSS scores. Note: This data is updated daily, relying on the latest available EPSS model version. Check out the EPSS documentation for more details.
Do your applications use this vulnerable package?
In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.
Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-JS-NODEFORGE-22114202
- published1 Nov 2026
- disclosed26 Oct 2026
- creditoffset, eddieran, Zion Boggan
Introduced: 26 Oct 2026
NewCVE-2026-119189 (opens in a new tab)How to fix?
Upgrade node-forge to version 1.4.1 or higher.
Overview
node-forge is a JavaScript implementations of network transports, cryptography, ciphers, PKI, message digests, and various utilities.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Improper Certificate Validation in the pki.verifyCertificateChain function in lib/x509.js. An attacker who controls a CA certificate that carries a pathLenConstraint but no keyUsage extension can place more intermediate CAs below it than the constraint permits and have the chain accepted, because the path-length check is guarded by keyUsageExt !== null && 'pathLenConstraint' in bcExt and is skipped whenever keyUsage is absent. This requires a trusted chain that contains such a constrained CA without keyUsage, which mainly arises in private PKIs since public web PKI CAs include keyUsage, and the attacker must hold that CA's key or obtain a CA certificate from it to issue the extra subordinates.
Workaround
This vulnerability can be avoided with an options.verify callback that rejects any chain where a CA at depth d has a pathLenConstraint less than d minus 1, or, on the issuance side, by re-issuing constrained CA certificates with a keyUsage extension that includes keyCertSign, which restores enforcement.