CVE-2026-14440

Trusted certificate issuance via CAA RRset override

Published Jul 1, 2026 · Updated Jul 1, 2026

Protection mechanism failure in Cloudflare Universal SSL allows attackers to obtain browser-trusted TLS certificates via network attacks. Its authoritative DNS serves a permissive auto-managed CAA RRset over customer records, hiding RFC 8657 accounturi and validationmethods constraints from the CA. Exploitation requires an ACME account at a listed CA and control of domain validation across multiple geographic perspectives; a resulting certificate enables man-in-the-middle traffic interception.

CVSS severity7.6
High
EPSS probability0.20%
Next 30 days · Sep 16, 2026
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Based on sourced intelligence
Hinoki checkNot available
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Summary

What happened

Protection mechanism failure in Cloudflare Universal SSL allows attackers to obtain browser-trusted TLS certificates via network attacks. Its authoritative DNS serves a permissive auto-managed CAA RRset over customer records, hiding RFC 8657 accounturi and validationmethods constraints from the CA. Exploitation requires an ACME account at a listed CA and control of domain validation across multiple geographic perspectives; a resulting certificate enables man-in-the-middle traffic interception.

The record

CVE
CVE-2026-14440
Published
Jul 1, 2026
Updated
Jul 1, 2026
Vendor
Cloudflare
Product
Universal SSL
Classifications
CWE-693, T1557
Attack vector
adjacent
Privileges
unauthenticated

Timeline

How it unfolded

  1. Jul 1, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
  2. Jul 1, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.

Exploitability

Present is not the same as exploitable

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Is a vulnerable build present?

Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.

  1. Affected versionversion=0 <=current

What conditions does exploitation require?

Attack vectoradjacent
Required privilegesunauthenticated

What is affected?

Cloudflare · Universal SSLversion=0 <=current

Published CVSS scores

6.8CISA-ADPCVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
7.6Cloudflare, Inc.CVSS:4.0/AV:A/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.

Attacks

What attackers are doing with it

Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.

Daily unique IPsNo honeypot observations are available for this CVE in the selected window.

No observations available

Sep 9, 2026Sep 15, 2026
Latest reporting daySep 15, 2026
Latest daily unique IPsUnavailable
Prior 30-day averageUnavailable
SourceShadowserver honeypots (KEV)
Vectoradjacent
Privilegesunauthenticated
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Public exploitUnconfirmed

Weakness, pattern, technique

CWE-693Protection Mechanism Failure
T1557Adversary-in-the-Middle

Public exploit references

No public exploit references are available in this record.

Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.

Technologies

Your stack

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Your stack

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