CVE-2026-44848
Published: 28 May 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-44848 is a critical-severity Missing Authorization (CWE-862) vulnerability in Portainer Portainer. Its CVSS base score is 9.4 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 24.7th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
No EU or UK CSIRT advisories indexed for this CVE.
Vulnerability details
Portainer Community Edition is a lightweight service delivery platform for containerized applications that can be used to manage Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes and ACI environments. From 2.33.0 to before 2.33.8, 2.39.2, and 2.41.0, The Docker plugin management endpoints (/plugins/*) were not…
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registered with a handler, so standard users with endpoint access could call privileged plugin operations — including installing and enabling plugins — directly against the underlying Docker daemon. The vulnerability is exposed when a non-admin Portainer user (Standard User role, or any role granted endpoint-level access) has been given access to a Docker endpoint via Portainer RBAC. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.33.8, 2.39.2, and 2.41.0.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Missing handler registration on privileged Docker plugin endpoints enables standard users to perform unauthorized admin-level plugin install/enable operations, directly mapping to exploitation for privilege escalation.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Requiring an access control policy ensures authorization checks are defined and applied for critical functions.
Reviews of access controls detect missing authorization checks on critical functions or resources.
Documenting permitted unauthenticated actions prevents missing authorization by making all exceptions explicit and subject to organizational review.
Requiring attribute association with information prevents authorization from being performed without necessary security or privacy context.
Mandating authorization prior to allowing remote connections addresses missing authorization for remote access.
Mandating authorization before wireless connections are allowed prevents missing authorization for wireless access.
The control requires authorization before allowing mobile device connections, directly mitigating missing authorization for system access.
Requiring approvals for account creation and specifying authorizations ensures authorization is not missing for system access.