CVE-2026-5545
Public on 2026-05-01
Modified on 2026-05-01
Description
libcurl might in some circumstances reuse the wrong connection when asked to do an authenticated HTTP(S) request after a Negotiate-authenticated one, when both use the same host.
libcurl features a pool of recent connections so that subsequent requests can reuse an existing connection to avoid overhead.
When reusing a connection a range of criteria must be met. Due to a logical error in the code, a request that was issued by an application could wrongfully reuse an existing connection to the same server that was authenticated using different credentials.
An application that first uses Negotiate authentication to a server with user1:password1 and then does another operation to the same server asking for any authentication method but for user2:password2 (while the previous connection is still alive) - the second request gets confused and wrongly reuses the same connection and sends the new request over that connection thinking it uses a mix of user1's and user2's credentials when it is in fact still using the connection authenticated for user1...
libcurl features a pool of recent connections so that subsequent requests can reuse an existing connection to avoid overhead.
When reusing a connection a range of criteria must be met. Due to a logical error in the code, a request that was issued by an application could wrongfully reuse an existing connection to the same server that was authenticated using different credentials.
An application that first uses Negotiate authentication to a server with user1:password1 and then does another operation to the same server asking for any authentication method but for user2:password2 (while the previous connection is still alive) - the second request gets confused and wrongly reuses the same connection and sends the new request over that connection thinking it uses a mix of user1's and user2's credentials when it is in fact still using the connection authenticated for user1...
Severity
See what this means
CVSS v3 Base Score
See breakdown
Affected Packages
| Platform | Package | Release Date | Advisory | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Linux 2 - Core | curl | Pending Fix | ||
| Amazon Linux 2023 | curl | Pending Fix |
CVSS Scores
| Score Type | Score | Vector | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Linux | CVSSv3 | 4.2 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N |