CVE-2026-26994
Published: 20 February 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-26994 is a medium-severity Protection Mechanism Failure (CWE-693) vulnerability in Refraction-Networking Utls. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Downgrade Attack (T1689); ranked at the 18.3th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-8028
Vulnerability details
uTLS is a fork of crypto/tls, created to customize ClientHello for fingerprinting resistance while still using it for the handshake. In versions 1.6.7 and below, uTLS did not implement the TLS 1.3 downgrade protection mechanism specified in RFC 8446 Section…
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4.1.3 when using a uTLS ClientHello spec. This allowed an active network adversary to downgrade TLS 1.3 connections initiated by a uTLS client to a lower TLS version (e.g., TLS 1.2) by modifying the ClientHello message to exclude the SupportedVersions extension, causing the server to respond with a TLS 1.2 ServerHello (along with a downgrade canary in the ServerHello random field). Because uTLS did not check the downgrade canary in the ServerHello random field, clients would accept the downgraded connection without detecting the attack. This attack could also be used by an active network attacker to fingerprint uTLS connections. This issue has been fixed in version 1.7.0.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Missing TLS 1.3 downgrade protection directly enables protocol downgrade attacks by active network adversaries.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Implements a reliable, tamperproof protection mechanism whose completeness can be assured.
Procedures for training on protection mechanisms reduce the chance of protection mechanism failures being present or exploitable.
Documented procedures to implement assessment, authorization, and monitoring controls prevent these protection mechanisms from failing due to undefined processes.
Direct evaluation of whether controls produce desired security outcomes detects protection mechanism failures and enables remediation.
Requires assessment that protection mechanisms are correctly implemented and producing intended security outcomes.
The POA&M process ensures identified weaknesses in protection mechanisms are documented and scheduled for remediation, reducing the duration they remain exploitable.
Ongoing control assessments and analysis of monitoring data enable timely detection and response when protection mechanisms fail.
Impact analysis identifies changes that could weaken or disable existing protection mechanisms.