CVE-2026-26416

High

Published: 05 March 2026

Published

05 March 2026

Modified

10 March 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 0.0004 13.9th percentile

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

Summary

CVE-2026-26416 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Tcs Cognix Platform. 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 13.9th 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-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-5 (Separation of Duties).

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 authorizations to directly prevent crafted requests from bypassing access controls and enabling privilege escalation.

AC-6 Least Privilege good match

prevent

Applies least privilege principle to restrict authenticated low-privilege users from escalating across role boundaries.

AC-5 Separation of Duties good match

prevent

Organizes duties into separated roles to block unauthorized privilege escalation across role boundaries via crafted requests.

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?

Authorization bypass (CWE-269) in an authenticated context directly enables an adversary with low-privileged valid credentials to obtain higher privileges via crafted requests, matching the definition of T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation.

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

NVD Description

An authorization bypass vulnerability in Tata Consultancy Services Cognix Recon Client v3.0 allows authenticated users to escalate privileges across role boundaries via crafted requests.

Deeper analysisAI

CVE-2026-26416, published on 2026-03-05, is an authorization bypass vulnerability in Tata Consultancy Services Cognix Recon Client version 3.0. The flaw allows authenticated users to escalate privileges across role boundaries through crafted requests. It 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) and maps to CWE-269 (Improper Privilege Management).

The vulnerability can be exploited by authenticated users possessing low privileges (PR:L), who can send crafted requests over the network (AV:N) with low attack complexity (AC:L) and no user interaction required (UI:N). Successful exploitation enables privilege escalation across role boundaries, leading to high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H) within the unchanged security scope (S:U).

Advisories and further details are documented in GitHub repositories at https://github.com/aksalsalimi/CVE-2026-26416 and https://github.com/aksalsalimi/cognix-recon-client-security-advisories. Product information from Tata Consultancy Services is available at https://www.tcs.com/what-we-do/services/cognitive-business-operations/solution/cognix-platform-business-agility-enhanced-cx. Security practitioners should review these sources for recommended mitigations or patches.