CVE-2026-85596: Traefik v3.7 Authentication Bypass via TLS Option Conflict

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2026-09-04 · updated 2026-10-08
Weakness: CWE-287

Description

Traefik versions >= v3.7.0 and <= v3.7.10 contain an authentication bypass in the Kubernetes Ingress NGINX provider. The TLS option generated for an Ingress carrying the nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-secret annotation was named after the Ingress namespace and name. As a result, two Ingress objects sharing the same host, the same client CA secret, and the same client-authentication mode produced two distinct TLS option names for that host. Traefik treats this as a TLS options conflict and falls back to the entry point's default TLS configuration, which does not request a client certificate, so a route configured with nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-tls-verify-client: "on" becomes reachable without a client certificate. Only the v3.7 line is affected; the issue is fixed in v3.7.11.

Affected products

Traefik: from 3.7.0 before 3.7.11 — fixed in 3.7.11

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Traefik 3.7.11. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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