diff --git a/docs/manual/migrating.adoc b/docs/manual/migrating.adoc
index eabaaa80a7..d8d86d8945 100644
--- a/docs/manual/migrating.adoc
+++ b/docs/manual/migrating.adoc
@@ -242,3 +242,8 @@ If you want to provide such libraries either:
 - Serve it by adding the library to your overlay.
 - Install the libraries from your project with NPM and bundle with a JavaScript
   bundler.
+
+In 2026.02, the network-manager package stopped selecting the gnutls package as
+a cryptography backend automatically. Manually enable the gnutls or libnss
+package if you require features that depend on a cryptography backend, such as
+certificate-based authentication.
diff --git a/package/network-manager/Config.in b/package/network-manager/Config.in
index b388c573fe..c3d9f7b655 100644
--- a/package/network-manager/Config.in
+++ b/package/network-manager/Config.in
@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@ config BR2_PACKAGE_NETWORK_MANAGER
 	depends on BR2_TOOLCHAIN_HAS_THREADS # libglib2
 	depends on BR2_USE_WCHAR # libglib2
 	select BR2_PACKAGE_DBUS
-	select BR2_PACKAGE_GNUTLS if !BR2_PACKAGE_LIBNSS
 	select BR2_PACKAGE_LIBGLIB2
 	select BR2_PACKAGE_LIBNDP
 	select BR2_PACKAGE_UTIL_LINUX
diff --git a/package/network-manager/network-manager.mk b/package/network-manager/network-manager.mk
index 1bec053c54..faf162f6f3 100644
--- a/package/network-manager/network-manager.mk
+++ b/package/network-manager/network-manager.mk
@@ -80,9 +80,11 @@ endif
 ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_LIBNSS),y)
 NETWORK_MANAGER_DEPENDENCIES += libnss
 NETWORK_MANAGER_CONF_OPTS += -Dcrypto=nss
-else
+else ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_GNUTLS),y)
 NETWORK_MANAGER_DEPENDENCIES += gnutls
 NETWORK_MANAGER_CONF_OPTS += -Dcrypto=gnutls
+else
+NETWORK_MANAGER_CONF_OPTS += -Dcrypto=null
 endif
 
 ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_LIBPSL),y)