CVE-2026-54291: Silent channel-binding authentication downgrade via unsupported certificate algorithms

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.9 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-07-06 · updated 2026-07-09
Weakness: CWE-636

Description

pgjdbc is an open source postgresql JDBC Driver. In releases 42.7.4 through 42.7.11, channelBinding=require connections can be silently downgraded from SCRAM-SHA-256-PLUS with channel binding to plain SCRAM-SHA-256 without it, losing the man-in-the-middle protection the setting is meant to guarantee. An attacker who can intercept the TLS connection can trigger the downgrade with a certificate whose signature algorithm has no tls-server-end-point channel-binding hash, because the bundled com.ongres.scram:scram-client returns an empty byte array instead of failing and pgJDBC ScramAuthenticator checks only that the server advertised a PLUS mechanism, without rejecting the empty binding or checking that the negotiated mechanism uses channel binding. This issue is fixed in version 42.7.12.

Affected products

Postgresql Jdbc Driver: from 42.7.4 before 42.7.12 — fixed in 42.7.12

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Postgresql Jdbc Driver 42.7.12. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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