Webpack dev server proxy not working

Question

I am trying to set webpack dev server proxy. However, I am getting following error:

500 - Error occurred while trying to proxy to: localhost:8080/abc/v1/user/search/?id=123122

Here is my webpack devserver config:

    proxy:  {
        "^/abc/v1/**":  "https://my-services.net/",
        changeOrigin: true,
        secure: false
    }

I get following error in VS Code IDE:

[HPM] Error occurred while trying to proxy request (UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE)

As mentioned in various posts, I have tried following solutions but none seems to help:

'process.env': {
    'NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED': '0'
}

strict-ssl=false

I am using webpack-dev-server version 2.11.2.