CWE-296: Improper Following of a Certificate's Chain of Trust
low-riskThe product does not follow, or incorrectly follows, the chain of trust for a certificate back to a trusted root certificate, resulting in incorrect trust of any resource that is associated with that certificate.
Abstraction: Base
Common Consequences
Non-Repudiation
→
Hide Activities
Integrity
→
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
Detection Methods
Automated Static Analysis
Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)
Real-World Examples (10)
| CVE | CVSS | EPSS | KEV |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2019-3762 | 7.5 | 0.2% | — |
| CVE-2025-48057 | 9.8 | 0.2% | — |
| CVE-2021-23162 | 7.7 | 0.2% | — |
| CVE-2025-1146 | 8.1 | 0.2% | — |
| CVE-2021-44532 | 5.3 | 0.1% | — |
| CVE-2021-23155 | 9.0 | 0.1% | — |
| CVE-2021-1566 | 7.4 | 0.1% | — |
| CVE-2019-3890 | 8.1 | 0.1% | — |
| CVE-2024-43196 | 4.3 | 0.1% | — |
| CVE-2025-22459 | 4.8 | 0.1% | — |
0
/ 100
low-risk
Active Threat
0/50 · Minimal
Exploit Availability
0/50 · Minimal