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Technical Specifications For Digital Covid CertificatesApplication · Europa

CVE-2021-40855

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-01-21
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 1.1 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
The EU Technical Specifications for Digital COVID Certificates before 1.1 mishandle certificate governance. A non-production public key certificate could have been used in production.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

The EU Digital COVID Certificate Technical Specifications before version 1.1 have flawed certificate governance that allows non-production (test/development) public key certificates to be used in production environments. This PKI misconfiguration could enable verification of fraudulent or invalid vaccination/test certificates.

MitigationUpgrade to Technical Specifications version 1.1 or later and implement strict certificate lifecycle management with clear segregation between production and non-production certificate authorities.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Technical Specifications For Digital Covid CertificatesApplication
Affected:< 1.1

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify the Technical Specifications version in use
    Review system documentation, configuration files, or verification service metadata to determine the implemented version of the EU Digital COVID Certificate Technical Specifications
    Affected if The version is below 1.1 (e.g., 1.0 or unversioned)
  2. Examine the production trust store contents
    Inspect the certificate trust store or configuration used by the COVID certificate verification system. List all certificate authority (CA) certificates configured for production verification
    Affected if Any CA certificates are identified as test, development, or non-production authorities (e.g., containing test issuer attributes, test organization names, or known test CA identifiers)
  3. Verify CA segregation configuration
    Check the verification system configuration for certificate validation rules that distinguish production from non-production CAs. Look for segregation settings, trust list definitions, or CA grouping configurations
    Affected if No segregation exists between production and test/development CAs, or test CAs are explicitly trusted for production validation
  4. Review certificate validation logic
    Examine the certificate chain validation code or configuration to determine if it enforces production-only CA validation. Check for flags, parameters, or settings that control which CA types are accepted
    Affected if The validation logic does not restrict acceptance to production CAs, or accepts certificates from any configured CA regardless of environment designation

A system is affected if it implements Technical Specifications version below 1.1 and has test/development certificate authorities present or trusted in its production verification configuration

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 1.1 or later
Fixed in 1.1
Interim mitigation

Upgrade to Technical Specifications version 1.1 or later and implement strict certificate lifecycle management with clear segregation between production and non-production certificate authorities.

Recommended fix High confidence

Technical Specifications For Digital Covid Certificates version 1.1

  1. Obtain the EU Digital COVID Certificate Technical Specifications version 1.1 from the official EU source (www.consilium.europa.eu)
  2. Review Section 4 (or relevant section) of version 1.1 for updated certificate governance requirements
  3. Identify any non-production public key certificates currently deployed in production systems
  4. Replace identified non-production certificates with production-approved certificates following the new governance rules in v1.1
  5. Verify certificate chain validation conforms to the v1.1 specification requirements
  6. Test the updated certificate validation to ensure proper governance enforcement
Caveat Specification update with minimal breaking changes; primarily addresses certificate governance policy

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Technical Specifications For Digital Covid Certificates Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
22.0 hours of engineering $3,860
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $6,176.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-40855 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data