Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:NSummary
CVE-2026-33246 is a medium-severity Improper Authentication (CWE-287) vulnerability in Linuxfoundation Nats-Server. Its CVSS base score is 6.4 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique External Remote Services (T1133); ranked at the 4th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to IA-2 (Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users)) and IA-3 (Device Identification and Authentication) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-15973
Vulnerability Data
NATS-Server is a High-Performance server for NATS.io, a cloud and edge native messaging system. The nats-server offers a `Nats-Request-Info:` message header, providing information about a request. This is supposed to provide enough information to allow for account/user identification, such that…
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NATS clients could make their own decisions on how to trust a message, provided that they trust the nats-server as a broker. A leafnode connecting to a nats-server is not fully trusted unless the system account is bridged too. Thus identity claims should not have propagated unchecked. Prior to versions 2.11.15 and 2.12.6, NATS clients relying upon the Nats-Request-Info: header could be spoofed. This does not directly affect the nats-server itself, but the CVSS Confidentiality and Integrity scores are based upon what a hypothetical client might choose to do with this NATS header. Versions 2.11.15 and 2.12.6 contain a fix. No known workarounds are available.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 11 hardening rules · 5 OS baselines
V6.4.4V6.5.4V6.5.5V6.5.7
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Mandates unique identification and authentication of organizational users before access, directly stopping improper authentication.
Requires unique identification and authentication of devices before establishing connections, preventing unauthenticated device claims.
Mandates unique identification and authentication of non-organizational users, directly addressing the weakness for external actors.
Manages authenticators with verification and secure distribution, reducing opportunities for improper authentication.
Enforces access only after approved authorizations, which presupposes correct authentication has occurred.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Protecting, conveying, and verifying identity assertions specifically prevents the spoofing that enables authentication bypass.
PR.AA-03 directly enforces authentication mechanisms that eliminate most improper-authentication defects, yet CWE-287 spans additional vectors (missing checks, flawed protocols, session handling) that one control does not fully close.
PR.AA-01 supplies and governs credentials/tokens that authentication relies on, removing some weak-credential cases, yet leaves verification logic, missing checks, and protocol flaws untouched.
PR.AA-02 ensures valid enrollment and unique credential binding, which reduces some improper-auth risks at issuance time but leaves runtime claim verification untouched, so each direction only partially addresses the other.
PR.PS-01 can enforce auth-related settings via hardened baselines and default reviews, blocking some config-based instances of CWE-287, yet leaves code-level auth flaws untouched so neither direction reaches mostly.
Patching/maintenance can remediate some known auth vulnerabilities after deployment (partial forward) but does not address the design or implementation of authentication logic itself (none reverse).
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Requiring authentication methods whose strength matches the sensitivity of the data and mandating multi-factor authentication directly blocks attempts to access resources without proving identity.
Verifying user identity before issuing replacement credentials and forcing changes after compromise reduces the likelihood that authentication bypass can be achieved through stolen or weak credentials.
Security testing can detect spoofing vulnerabilities but does not prevent them by itself.
Access control policy reduces spoofing opportunities but does not prescribe authentication mechanisms.
Mandating segregated approval and oversight for non-human identities reduces the chance that weak or orphaned credentials can be exploited for unauthorized authentication.
Access rights assignment limits exposure but does not enforce authentication strength.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Oracle Linux 8 (1 rule)
- V-248827 OL 8 must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-287, CWE-290
RHEL 7 (3 rules)
- V-204425 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that the SSH daemon does not allow authentication using an empty password. prevents CWE-287
- V-204442 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-287, CWE-290
- V-204424 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not allow accounts configured with blank or null passwords. prevents CWE-287
RHEL 8 (1 rule)
- V-230492 RHEL 8 must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-287, CWE-290
Ubuntu 22.04 (1 rule)
- V-260470 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, when booted, must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes. prevents CWE-287
Ubuntu 24.04 (2 rules)
- V-270675 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS when booted must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes. prevents CWE-287
- V-270714 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS must not allow accounts configured in Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) with blank or null passwords. prevents CWE-287