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CVE-2026-16895

Authentication Bypass in Metasploit JSON-RPC Service When DB Health Check Fails

Medium5.1EPSS 0.23%
Published
Updated
Reserved
Assigned by
rapid7

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 scores of CVE-2026-16895, by who scored it
Scored byCVSSScoreVector
rapid7CNA (assigner)4.0Medium5.1CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N
NVDNVD · Awaiting Analysis4.0Medium5.1CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
0.23% · top 86% of all CVEs (6 Nov 2026)
CISA SSVC
Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
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The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 5.1.

Weakness

Affected products

References (2)

Sources

The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.

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Record last updated .