PKCS7 Verify Signer Confusion Vulnerability

Compliance Impact

The vulnerability in PKCS7_verify allows forged signatures due to signer confusion, meaning that a signature can be accepted without correctly binding it to the actual signer. This flaw can undermine the integrity and authenticity of digital signatures.

Since digital signatures are often used to ensure data integrity and non-repudiation in compliance with standards like GDPR and HIPAA, this vulnerability could potentially lead to non-compliance by allowing unauthorized or forged signatures to be accepted.

However, the provided information does not explicitly detail the direct impact on compliance with these regulations.

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Mitigation Strategies

To mitigate this vulnerability, you should update your wolfSSL library to include the fixes introduced in the pull request merged on April 24, 2026 (PR #10203). This update addresses signer-identity forgery issues in PKCS#7 verification and includes multiple hardening improvements such as additional length validations and bounds checks.

• Apply the patch or upgrade to the wolfSSL version that contains the PKCS#7 fixes.
• Review your use of PKCS#7 verification functions to ensure they are not relying on vulnerable versions.
• Test your system after updating to confirm that the vulnerability is resolved and no regressions occur.

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Executive Summary

This vulnerability involves PKCS7_verify where there is a signer confusion issue. It allows forged signatures to be accepted because the signer associated with a signature is not correctly bound, meaning the system can be tricked into accepting a signature that was not actually created by the claimed signer.

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Impact Analysis

The impact of this vulnerability is that an attacker could create forged signatures that appear valid. This could lead to acceptance of unauthorized or malicious data, potentially compromising the integrity and authenticity of signed information.

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