RHSA-2026:72506

curl would wrongly reuse an existing HTTP proxy connection doing CONNECT to a server, even if the new request uses different credentials for the HTTP proxy. The proper behavior is to create or use a separate connection.

libcurl might in some circumstances reuse the wrong connection when asked to do Negotiate-authenticated ones, even when they are set to use different "services". libcurl features a pool of recent connections so that subsequent requests can reuse an existing connection to avoid overhead. When reusing a connection a range of criteria must be met. Due to a logical error in the code, a request that was issued by an application could wrongfully reuse an existing connection to the same server that was authenticated using different services.

A flaw in curl’s cookie parsing logic allows a malicious HTTP server to set "super cookies" that bypass the Public Suffix List check. This enables an attacker-controlled origin to inject cookies that curl subsequently scopes and transmits to unrelated third-party domains.

libcurl would reuse a previously created connection even when some mTLS config related option had been changed that should have prohibited reuse. libcurl keeps previously used connections in a connection pool for subsequent transfers to reuse if one of them matches the setup. However, some TLS settings related to client certificates were left out from the configuration match checks, making them match too easily. In particular options related to the private key.

When doing TLS related transfers with reused easy or multi handles and altering the `CURLSSLOPT_NO_PARTIALCHAIN` option, libcurl could accidentally reuse a CA store cached in memory for which the partial chain option was reversed. Contrary to the user's wishes and expectations. This could make libcurl find and accept a trust chain that it otherwise would not.

When asking curl to use a `.netrc` file to find credentials and at the same time specifying a URL with a username (without a password), like `https://user@example.com/`, curl could wrongly get and use the password for *another* user set in the `.netrc` file for that host if such a one exists and there is no match for the specified user.

libcurl had a flaw that when instructed to clear proxy authentication credentials which made it not do so, leaving the old credentials around to get used for subsequent transfers that should not know nor use them.

When a user invokes curl using a schemeless URL combined with `--proto-default` sftp (or scp), a disconnect occurs between the tool layer and libcurl. The tool layer incorrectly infers the URL scheme, which erroneously bypasses the initialization of critical SSH security options like CURLOPT_SSH_HOST_PUBLIC_KEY_SHA256 and CURLOPT_SSH_KNOWNHOSTS. Conversely, the libcurl runtime successfully honors CURLOPT_DEFAULT_PROTOCOL and establishes the connection via SFTP/SCP as specified. Because the tool layer skipped the security configuration, these SSH host verification options are silently omitted, causing curl to connect to an unverified SSH remote host without throwing an error.

When a libcurl-based application performs transfers via `SCP://` or `SFTP://` and utilizes the `CURLOPT_SSH_KEYFUNCTION` callback, it may silently accept an untrusted server. This vulnerability occurs when a server presents a host key type that does not match the specific key type already recorded for that host in the `known_hosts` file. Instead of rejecting the mismatch, the callback mechanism fails to properly enforce the restriction, allowing the connection to succeed without warning and risking a potential man-in-the-middle attack.

When an OAuth2 bearer token is used for an HTTP(S) transfer, and that transfer performs a redirect to a second URL, curl could leak that token to the second hostname under some circumstances. If the hostname that the first request is redirected to has information in the used .netrc file, with either of the `machine` or `default` keywords, curl would pass on the bearer token set for the first host also to the second one.

When reusing a libcurl handle for sequential transfers driven by environment-variable proxy configuration, libcurl fails to clear the proxy authentication state between requests. Specifically, if the initial transfer authenticates against `proxyA` using Digest auth, a subsequent transfer routed through `proxyB` erroneously leaks the `Proxy-Authorization:` header intended solely for `proxyA`.

Successfully using libcurl to do a transfer to a specific HTTP origin (`hostA`) with **Digest** authentication and then changing the origin to a different one (`hostB`) for a second transfer, reusing the same handle, makes libcurl wrongly pass on the `Authorization:` header field meant for `hostA`, to `hostB`.

libcurl can in some circumstances reuse the wrong connection when asked to do an Negotiate-authenticated HTTP or HTTPS request. libcurl features a pool of recent connections so that subsequent requests can reuse an existing connection to avoid overhead. When reusing a connection a range of criterion must first be met. Due to a logical error in the code, a request that was issued by an application could wrongfully reuse an existing connection to the same server that was authenticated using different credentials. One underlying reason being that Negotiate sometimes authenticates *connections* and not *requests*, contrary to how HTTP is designed to work. An application that allows Negotiate authentication to a server (that responds wanting Negotiate) with `user1:password1` and then does another operation to the same server also using Negotiate but with `user2:password2` (while the previous connection is still alive) - the second request wrongly reused the same connection and since it then sees that the Negotiate negotiation is already made, it sends the request over that connection thinking it uses the user2 credentials when it is in fact still using the connection authenticated for user1... The set of authentication methods to use is set with `CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH`. Applications can disable libcurl's reuse of connections and thus mitigate this problem, by using one of the following libcurl options to alter how connections are or are not reused: `CURLOPT_FRESH_CONNECT`, `CURLOPT_MAXCONNECTS` and `CURLMOPT_MAX_HOST_CONNECTIONS` (if using the curl_multi API).

A vulnerability exists where a new transfer that uses STARTTLS to upgrade the connection might reuse an existing live connection even though the TLS configuration mismatches so it should not.