HighPublic exploitVulnerability

CVE-2026-97629

TLS Session Ticket Forgery in NGINX

Published Oct 14, 2026 · Updated 3 days ago

Trending this weekNot trendingOutside this week’s top 100

Mention activity · 30 days

25 mentions · peak 6 in a dayToday

CVSS8.3High · v4

EPSS0.25%16th percentile

CISA KEVNoNot listed

In the wildNonePublic exploit, no exploitation reported

IdentifiersCVE-2026-97629CWE-908 · Use of Uninitialized Resource

CVE-2026-97629 is an uninitialized-resource vulnerability in the NGINX ngx_http_ssl_module affecting NGINX Open Source, NGINX Plus, and products embedding vulnerable NGINX components. When a shared SSL session cache enables automatic TLS session ticket key rotation without explicit ticket key files, incomplete synchronization between worker processes can leave one worker-local key slot uninitialized. This key material may be used to verify and decrypt session tickets, potentially allowing a remote unauthenticated attacker to forge TLS sessions and bypass client certificate verification. Successful forgery is nondeterministic and depends on conditions beyond the attacker's control. The affected upstream code was introduced in NGINX 1.23.2; fixes are available in 1.30.6 stable and 1.31.7 mainline.

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Analyst brief

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means and what to do now: patch path, interim mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation can bypass client certificate authentication, exposing protected resources, application functionality, or sensitive information to unauthorized clients. The vulnerability affects only the data plane and does not expose the control plane. Its assessed consequences include high confidentiality impact and low integrity impact, with no availability impact.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

Prevent vulnerable automatic ticket key rotation by removing the shared ssl_session_cache directive, configuring explicit ticket keys with ssl_session_ticket_key, or disabling session tickets with ssl_session_tickets off. Apply the chosen configuration change to all affected TLS listeners.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade NGINX Open Source to 1.30.6 stable, 1.31.7 mainline, or a later security-fixed release, or install the distribution's backported fix. NGINX Plus fixes include 37.0.5.1 and 37.1.0.1 for their respective branches. Fixed embedded-product releases include NGINX Instance Manager 2.24.0, F5 WAF for NGINX 5.16.0 or 5.14.2, F5 DoS for NGINX 4.11.0, NGINX Gateway Fabric 2.8.0, and NGINX Ingress Controller 5.7.0. Debian 13 fixes are available in 1.26.3-3+deb13u10; Ubuntu fixes include 1.24.0-2ubuntu7.19 for 24.04 LTS, 1.28.3-2ubuntu1.12 for 26.04 LTS, and 1.30.4-7ubuntu1.1 for 26.10. Verify the complete vendor package revision and ensure serving workers, containers, and appliances actually run the patched binary.

Public exploits

Exploits

1 exploit validated by Mallory's analysis. Hidden: 2 rejected by Mallory's analysis as not a working exploit.

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nginx-cve-2026-97629This standalone repository contains 14 files: three Python programs, two READMEs, three captured evidence files, a C source patch, an nginx configuration, two PEM artifacts, a license, and a gitignore. The three Python files are the executable code; C appears only in the patch. No exploit framework is present. The repository URL, git reference, and archive size were not supplied; empty metadata and size 0 represent unavailable values. The alleged defect is a mismatch between three ticket-key slots examined during decryption and only two slots synchronized into worker memory. The scripts exploit a purported zero-filled third slot by constructing tickets with an all-zero key name and all-zero AES/HMAC keys. make_forged_session.py patches the session context using SHA-1("HTTP" || SHA-1(certificate DER)). forge_ticket.py tests acceptance through an abbreviated handshake. forge_ticket_full.py implements TLS 1.2 key derivation and protected record exchange to demonstrate encrypted HTTP read/write access. Actual HMAC construction includes the key name, despite one contradictory docstring line. The supplied evidence reports successful resumption and a decrypted HTTP 404 from nginx 1.31.2, but these are repository-provided records, not independently verified results. Both principal exploit files are truncated in the supplied content, limiting complete control-flow and runtime validation. The lab does not configure ssl_verify_client, so its output demonstrates ticket forgery rather than an actual mutual-TLS authorization bypass. The helper also omits client-CA names from session-context calculation, limiting direct applicability to some authenticated deployments. Required certificate/key paths are not fully populated, and the bundled session is a historical artifact, so the repository is not immediately self-contained for a fresh reproduction. The patch changes the ticket-key copy count from two to three. Documentation recommends upgrading, disabling session tickets, or configuring explicit ticket-key files. The stated CVE, affected ranges, fixed versions, and disclosure claims have not been externally validated. Visible exploit networking is limited to loopback; advisory and author URLs are documentation references, not code-called endpoints. No destructive behavior, external callback, or evidence of a fake-exploit trap is visible.PhiNode-Labs · Disclosed Oct 21, 2026 · python · c · networkOperational

External references

References

MITRE CVEcve.org · CVE-2026-97629 NVDnvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-97629 MITRE CWE · CWE-908Use of Uninitialized Resource my.f5.commy.f5.com/manage/s/article/K000162606

Activity feed

Recent activity

26 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.

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tenable nessus pluginsNews · Nov 3, 2026FreeBSD : freenginx -- TLS session ticket key left uninitializ... | Tenable®An uninitialized TLS session ticket key in freenginx, when automatic key rotation is enabled, allows attackers to forge sessions and bypass client certificate verification. The advisory covers affected freenginx packages on FreeBSD. The plugin assigns a CVSS v4 base score of 8.3 and reports available exploits. Nessus detects affected installations using self-reported version information rather than testing exploitation.Read more ↗tenable nessus pluginsNews · Oct 25, 2026Amazon Linux 2023 : nginx, nginx-all-modules, nginx-core (ALAS... | Tenable®A client SSL session-forgery vulnerability affecting shared session-cache configurations with automatic ticket-key rotation and no explicit ssl_session_ticket_key file directives. Successful exploitation can bypass client-certificate verification and expose protected resources or sensitive information. Success depends on nondeterministic conditions outside the attacker's control. The issue affects the data plane only. Nessus relies on self-reported versions. Advisory-level exploit availability is reported, but not attributed to this specific CVE.Read more ↗tenable nessus pluginsNews · Oct 24, 2026Amazon Linux 2 : nginx (ALASNGINX1-2026-017) | Tenable®A client SSL-session forgery vulnerability affecting shared SSL session-cache configurations that automatically rotate ticket keys without explicit ssl_session_ticket_key files. An unauthenticated remote attacker may nondeterministically bypass client-certificate verification, exposing protected resources, functionality, or sensitive information. The issue affects the data plane only. The advisory identifies Amazon Linux 2 nginx packages older than 1.30.6-1 as affected and provides an update. Exploit availability is reported at the advisory level without per-CVE details.Read more ↗tenable cloud security pluginsNews · Oct 23, 2026Echo: nginx: security update to 1.26.3-3+deb13u10 | Tenable®An SSL session forgery vulnerability in NGINX Plus and NGINX Open Source under the specified shared session-cache configuration. A remote unauthenticated attacker could bypass client-certificate verification, potentially exposing sensitive information or restricted functionality. Forgery is nondeterministic and beyond the attacker's control. The issue affects the data plane only, with no control-plane exposure. The reference reports a CVSS v4 base score of 8.3 and available exploits. Updating nginx and related packages to version 1.26.3-3+deb13u10 or later is the prescribed fix.Read more ↗

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Exposure mappingQuery your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.

Threat actor evidenceEvery report linking this CVE to a named adversary.

Associated malwareMalware families linked to this CVE, with evidence and IOCs.

Detection signaturesYARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

Vendor-by-vendor mappingCross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity4Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.