CVE-2026-16895
Authentication Bypass in Metasploit JSON-RPC Service When DB Health Check Fails
- State
- Published
- Severity
- 5.1 Medium
- Published
- Aug 27, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 27, 2026
- Reserved
- Jul 24, 2026
Description
A logic vulnerability (fail-open condition) has been identified within the Metasploit Framework's JSON-RPC web service interface. When an exception occurs during the database health check (db.check) and the environment variable MSF_WS_JSON_RPC_API_TOKEN is not explicitly set, the application resets the internal state flag msf.auth_initialized to false. The ApiToken Warden authentication strategy misinterprets this false value as an indicator that authentication is not initialized or required, thereby granting unauthenticated local access to the JSON-RPC request dispatcher.
Scores
| CVSS | Score | Vector | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0 | 5.1 Medium | CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N | rapid7 |
Weaknesses
- CWE-305 Authentication bypass by primary weakness
Affected Products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
Metasploit-frameworkRapid7 |
|
References
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