CVE-2026-33248

MEDIUM

NATS has mTLS verify_and_map authentication bypass via incorrect Subject DN matching

Title source: cna

Description

NATS-Server is a High-Performance server for NATS.io, a cloud and edge native messaging system. Prior to versions 2.11.15 and 2.12.6, when using mTLS for client identity, with `verify_and_map` to derive a NATS identity from the client certificate's Subject DN, certain patterns of RDN would not be correctly enforced, allowing for authentication bypass. This does require a valid certificate from a CA already trusted for client certificates, and `DN` naming patterns which the NATS maintainers consider highly unlikely. So this is an unlikely attack. Nonetheless, administrators who have been very sophisticated in their `DN` construction patterns might conceivably be impacted. Versions 2.11.15 and 2.12.6 contain a fix. As a workaround, developers should review their CA issuing practices.

Scores

CVSS v3 4.2
EPSS 0.0002
EPSS Percentile 6.7%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

Details

CWE
CWE-287 CWE-295
Status published
Products (5)
linuxfoundation/nats-server < 2.11.15
nats-io/nats-server 0Go
nats-io/nats-server 0 - 2.11.15Go
nats-io/nats-server < 2.11.15
nats-io/nats-server >= 2.12.0-RC.1, < 2.12.6
Published Mar 25, 2026
Tracked Since Mar 26, 2026