The fix for CVE-2025-68161 was incomplete: it addressed hostname verification only when enabled via the [`log4j2.sslVerifyHostName`](https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/systemproperties.html#log4j2.sslVerifyHostName) system property, but not when configured through the [`verifyHostName`](https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/appenders/network.html#SslConfiguration-attr-verifyHostName) attribute of the `<Ssl>` element.

Although the `verifyHostName` configuration attribute was introduced in Log4j Core 2.12.0, it was silently ignored in all versions through 2.25.3, leaving TLS connections vulnerable to interception regardless of the configured value.

A network-based attacker may be able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack when all of the following conditions are met:

* An SMTP, Socket, or Syslog appender is in use.
* TLS is configured via a nested <Ssl> element.
* The attacker can present a certificate issued by a CA trusted by the appender's configured trust store, or by the default Java trust store if none is configured.

This issue does not affect users of the HTTP appender, which uses a separate [`verifyHostname`](https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/appenders/network.html#HttpAppender-attr-verifyHostName) attribute that was not subject to this bug and verifies host names by default.

Users are advised to upgrade to Apache Log4j Core 2.25.4, which corrects this issue.