CVE-2026-23526

High

Published: 21 January 2026

Published

21 January 2026

Modified

20 February 2026

KEV Added

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Patch

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CVSS Score 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS Score 0.0005 15.0th percentile

Risk Priority 18 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2026-23526 is a high-severity Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions (CWE-267) vulnerability in Cvat Computer Vision Annotation Tool. Its CVSS base score is 8.8 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 15.0th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-2 (Account Management) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068). What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.

Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

AC-3 Access Enforcement good match

prevent

Enforces approved access control policies to prevent staff users from arbitrarily modifying their own permissions and escalating to superuser status.

AC-6 Least Privilege good match

prevent

Applies least privilege to restrict staff users from performing unsafe actions like self-escalation to admin privileges.

AC-2 Account Management good match

prevent

Manages and reviews user accounts and privileges to identify and revoke inappropriate staff status, directly aligning with the CVE workaround.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation

Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.

attack.mitre.org →

Why these techniques?

Direct privilege escalation via unsafe self-modification of permissions/roles to superuser/admin status.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1

NVD Description

CVAT is an open source interactive video and image annotation tool for computer vision. In versions 1.0.0 through 2.54.0, users that have the staff status may freely change their permissions, including giving themselves superuser status and joining the admin group,…

which gives them full access to the data in the CVAT instance. Version 2.55.0 fixes the issue. As a workaround, review the list of users with staff status and revoke it from any users that are not expected to have superuser privileges.

Deeper analysisAI

CVE-2026-23526 is a privilege escalation vulnerability in CVAT, an open-source interactive video and image annotation tool for computer vision. It affects versions 1.0.0 through 2.54.0, where users with staff status can arbitrarily modify their own permissions, including elevating themselves to superuser status and joining the admin group. This grants full access to all data within the CVAT instance. The flaw is tracked under CWE-267 (Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions) and carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).

Any authenticated user with staff status can exploit this vulnerability remotely over the network, requiring low privileges, low attack complexity, and no user interaction. Exploitation allows the attacker to achieve high impacts across confidentiality, integrity, and availability, effectively compromising the entire CVAT instance by accessing, modifying, or disrupting all stored data.

CVAT version 2.55.0 addresses the issue with a fix. As a temporary workaround, administrators should review all users with staff status and revoke it from those not intended to hold superuser privileges. Additional details are available in the GitHub security advisory (https://github.com/cvat-ai/cvat/security/advisories/GHSA-7pvv-w55f-qmw7) and the patching commit (https://github.com/cvat-ai/cvat/commit/88ac7aa4d5b52271a30f1aa387c0f5745f8f77d4).

Given CVAT's use in computer vision annotation pipelines, this vulnerability holds relevance for AI/ML environments handling sensitive datasets. No public reports of real-world exploitation were noted at publication on 2026-01-21.