Improper Certificate Validation
CVE-2026-9697
Summary
undici's ProxyAgent silently drops the requestTls option when configured with a SOCKS5 proxy URI (socks5:// or socks://). The target HTTPS connection through the SOCKS5 tunnel falls back to Node's default trust store, ignoring user-configured ca, cert, key, rejectUnauthorized, and servername settings. Applications that pin to an internal or corporate CA via requestTls.ca will, when their proxy URI is SOCKS5, get the default Mozilla CA bundle as the trust anchor instead. Any cert signed by any publicly-trusted CA for the target hostname is accepted, breaking the intended pin and enabling MITM read and tamper of the HTTPS exchange. Affected applications are those that use undici's ProxyAgent (or Socks5ProxyAgent directly) with SOCKS5 AND rely on requestTls for TLS scope restriction. The bug was introduced in undici 7.23.0 when SOCKS5 support was added. Patches: Upgrade to undici v7.28.0 or v8.5.0. Workarounds: No workaround is available within the SOCKS5 path. If a SOCKS5 proxy with TLS scope restriction is required and an upgrade is not yet possible, route the traffic through an HTTP-proxy ProxyAgent instead, where requestTls is honored correctly.
- HIGH
- NETWORK
- HIGH
- UNCHANGED
- NONE
- NONE
- HIGH
- NONE
CWE-295 - Improper Certificate Validation
The authenticity component of a web system stems from the ability to validate “Digital certificates”, which (i) establish trust between two or more entities sharing data over a network; (ii) ensure data at rest and transit is secure from unauthorized access; and (iii) check the identity of the actors that interact with the system. An application with absent or ineffective certificate validation mechanisms allows malicious users, impersonating trusted hosts, to manipulate the communication path between the client and the host, resulting in unauthorized access to data and to the application’s internal environment, and potentially enabling man-in-the-middle attacks.
Advisory Timeline
- Published
