CVE-2026-53709
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2026-53709 is a critical-severity Improper Authentication (CWE-287) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Credentials In Files (T1552.001); ranked at the 38th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
This vulnerability is AI-related — categorised as AI Agent Protocols and Integrations; in the Protocol-Specific Risks risk domain.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-6 (Least Privilege) and CM-2 (Baseline Configuration) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-98769
Vulnerability Data
MCP Context Forge is an MCP gateway and administrative platform. Prior to 1.0.2, mcpgateway/config.py and .env.example ship a known JWT_SECRET_KEY, while verify_jwt_token() accepts HS256 tokens signed with that key and get_current_user() creates a platform administrator when the token subject matches…
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PLATFORM_ADMIN_EMAIL and REQUIRE_USER_IN_DB is false. A remote unauthenticated attacker can therefore mint accepted administrator tokens without a database account. While the vulnerable signing key remains configured and the platform-admin bootstrap remains enabled, forged access survives password rotation, account deletion, and session revocation, allowing administrative disclosure, modification, and service disruption. This issue is fixed in version 1.0.2.
- CWE(s)
AI Security AnalysisAI
- AI Category
- AI Agent Protocols and Integrations
- Risk Domain
- Protocol-Specific Risks
- OWASP Top 10 for LLMs 2025
- None mapped
- Classification Reason
- Matched keywords: mcp, mcp
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 11 hardening rules · 6 OS baselines
V14.3.2V6.3.2V11.3.1V13.2.3
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Least privilege reduces the blast radius of any insecure default permissions that remain after initialization.
Baseline configuration directly requires documenting and maintaining secure initial settings instead of insecure defaults.
Configuration settings mandate the most restrictive values be applied at initialization, eliminating reliance on insecure factory defaults.
Authenticator management requires secure distribution and handling of credentials, structurally discouraging hard-coded values.
Security engineering principles include explicit requirements for secure defaults during resource initialization and design.
Requiring cryptographic keys to be established and managed according to defined requirements prevents developers from embedding static unchangeable keys.
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.
Pre-acquisition integrity checks can reject products known to ship with insecure defaults.
PR.AA-01's credential/key-management processes can reduce the incentive to embed secrets but do not address or detect hard-coded values in source code, so the weakness remains fully possible.
Data-at-rest protection policies require proper key management and therefore discourage hard-coded keys.
Data-in-transit protection similarly depends on non-hard-coded keys for encryption.
Configuration baselines and reviews can prohibit hard-coded keys in deployed artifacts.
Secure-SDLC activities such as code review and secret scanning directly prevent embedding static keys.
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.
Mandating segregated approval and oversight for non-human identities reduces the chance that weak or orphaned credentials can be exploited for unauthorized authentication.
A.5.17 directly mandates generation of non-guessable unique secrets, secure transmission, immediate change of defaults/temporary creds, strong password enforcement, no-reuse, and compromise response, which stops most improper-authentication exploits at source; the bounded remainder is non-password authentication methods and sufficiency-of-proof cases (e.g. IA-2/IA-5 enhancements) left to other controls.
Education on secure configuration practices discourages technical staff from embedding or relying on hard-coded credentials in systems and applications.
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` (higher-evidence rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Oracle Linux 8 (1 rule)
- V-248823 OL 8 must not have the telnet-server package installed. blocks CWE-1188
RHEL 7 (1 rule)
- V-204627 SNMP community strings on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be changed from the default. blocks CWE-1188
Ubuntu 22.04 (1 rule)
- V-260529 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS must be configured so that remote X connections are disabled, unless to fulfill documented and validated mission requirements. blocks CWE-1188
Ubuntu 24.04 (1 rule)
- V-270708 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS must be configured so that remote X connections are disabled, unless to fulfill documented and validated mission requirements. blocks CWE-1188
Windows Server 2016 (1 rule)
- V-224972 Active Directory Group Policy objects must have proper access control permissions. blocks CWE-1188
Windows Server 2019 (1 rule)
- V-205741 Windows Server 2019 Active Directory Group Policy objects must have proper access control permissions. blocks CWE-1188