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CVE-2013-4545 Moderate

CVE-2013-4545

cURL and libcurl 7.18.0 through 7.32.0, when built with OpenSSL, disables the certificate CN and SAN name field verification (CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST) when the digital signature verification (CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER) is disabled, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers to spoof SSL servers via an arbitrary valid certificate.

Exploit probability 3.1%
Published November 23, 2013
Required by Not available
Last source change April 16, 2026

02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE

Affected packages

Unknown Unknown

34 explicit affected versions

03 / CONNECTIONS

Connected vulnerabilities

04 / EVIDENCE

Source records

Open Source Vulnerabilities CURL-CVE-2013-4545

libcurl is vulnerable to a case of missing out the checking of the certificate CN or SAN name field when the digital signature verification is turned off. libcurl offers two separate and independent options for verifying a server's TLS certificate. `CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER` and `CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST`. The first one tells libcurl to verify the trust chain using a CA cert bundle, while the second tells libcurl to make sure that the name fields in the server certificate meets the criteria. Both options are enabled by default. This flaw had the effect that when an application disabled `CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER`, libcurl mistakenly also disabled the `CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST` check. Applications can disable `CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER` and still achieve security by doing the check on its own using other means. The curl command line tool is not affected by this problem as it either enables both options or disables both at the same time.

View original source
Open Source Vulnerabilities CVE-2013-4545

cURL and libcurl 7.18.0 through 7.32.0, when built with OpenSSL, disables the certificate CN and SAN name field verification (CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST) when the digital signature verification (CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER) is disabled, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers to spoof SSL servers via an arbitrary valid certificate.

View original source

05 / REFERENCES

Further evidence