Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-40974

Medium

Published: 28 April 2026

Published
28 April 2026
Modified
14 May 2026
KEV Added
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Patch
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CVSS Score v3.1 5.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0018 8.0th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-40974 is a medium-severity Improper Certificate Validation (CWE-295) vulnerability in Vmware Spring Boot. Its CVSS base score is 5.0 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Adversary-in-the-Middle (T1557); ranked at the 8.0th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A07:2025 Authentication Failures

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Spring Boot's Cassandra auto-configuration does not perform hostname verification when establishing an SSL connection to Cassandra. Affected: Spring Boot 4.0.0–4.0.5 (fix 4.0.6), 3.5.0–3.5.13 (fix 3.5.14), 3.4.0–3.4.15 (fix 3.4.16), 3.3.0–3.3.18 (fix 3.3.19), 2.7.0–2.7.32 (fix 2.7.33); Cassandra SSL auto-configuration. Versions that are…

more

no longer supported are also affected per vendor advisory.

CWE(s)
CWE-295

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1557 Adversary-in-the-Middle Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to position themselves between two or more networked devices using an adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) technique to support follow-on behaviors such as [Network Sniffing](https://attack.
attack.mitre.org →
Why these techniques?

Missing hostname verification in SSL config directly enables adversary-in-the-middle positioning to intercept Cassandra traffic.

Confidence: MEDIUM · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

Affected Assets

vmware
spring boot
2.7.0 — 2.7.33 · 3.3.0 — 3.3.19 · 3.4.0 — 3.4.16

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.

SA-19 Component Authenticity
addresses: CWE-295

When certificates are used to establish component provenance, the control requires correct certificate validation procedures.

SC-17 Public Key Infrastructure Certificates
addresses: CWE-295

Mandates approved trust anchors and issuance policies, directly preventing acceptance of unvalidated or untrusted certificates.

SC-45 System Time Synchronization
addresses: CWE-295

Correct system time is required for proper enforcement of certificate notBefore/notAfter dates and time-based revocation checks.

References