libcurl Auth Credential Leak via Connection Reuse
CVE-2026-5545 Published on May 13, 2026

wrong reuse of HTTP Negotiate connection
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...

NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2026-5545 can be exploited with network access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is consided to have a high level of attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have a small impact on confidentiality, a high impact on integrity, and no impact on availability.

Attack Vector:
NETWORK
Attack Complexity:
HIGH
Privileges Required:
NONE
User Interaction:
NONE
Scope:
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact:
LOW
Integrity Impact:
HIGH
Availability Impact:
NONE

Weakness Type

Authentication Bypass by Primary Weakness

The authentication algorithm is sound, but the implemented mechanism can be bypassed as the result of a separate weakness that is primary to the authentication error.


Products Associated with CVE-2026-5545

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Canonical Ubuntu Linux
 
Haxx Curl
 

Affected Versions

curl: curl: curl:

Exploit Probability

EPSS
0.36%
Percentile
28.04%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.