Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-77521

RCE

Published
21 September 2026
Modified
22 September 2026
CVSS Score v3.1 10.0
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.010 63th percentile
Risk Priority 76 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2026-77521 is a critical-severity OS Command Injection (CWE-78) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 10.0 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Process Injection (T1055); ranked in the top 37% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

This vulnerability is AI-related — categorised as Enterprise AI Assistants; in the Protocol-Specific Risks risk domain.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

MaxKB is an open-source AI assistant for enterprise. Prior to version 2.10.5-lts, assistants with a tool, MCP tool, skill, or sub-application use SandboxShellBackend, which exposes an execute shell tool without excluding it and omits execute from interrupt_on, so human approval…

more

is not required. Untrusted chat or ingested content can therefore cause command execution; source deployments with MAXKB_SANDBOX disabled run commands directly as the application user, while the official root container's string-based gosu wrapper allowed shell metacharacters to execute outside the intended sandbox. This issue is fixed in version 2.10.5-lts.

CWE(s)

AI Security AnalysisAI

AI Category
Enterprise AI Assistants
Risk Domain
Protocol-Specific Risks
OWASP Top 10 for LLMs 2025
None mapped
Classification Reason
Matched keywords: ai, mcp

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1055 Process Injection Stealth
Adversaries may inject code into processes in order to evade process-based defenses as well as possibly elevate privileges.
T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter Execution
Adversaries may abuse command and script interpreters to execute commands, scripts, or binaries.
T1059.001 PowerShell Execution
Adversaries may abuse PowerShell commands and scripts for execution.
T1059.003 Windows Command Shell Execution
Adversaries may abuse the Windows command shell for execution.
T1059.004 Unix Shell Execution
Adversaries may abuse Unix shell commands and scripts for execution.
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-43652Shared CWE-250, CWE-78
CVE-2024-43654Shared CWE-250, CWE-78
CVE-2025-22366Shared CWE-250, CWE-78
CVE-2024-43648Shared CWE-250, CWE-78
CVE-2024-43650Shared CWE-250, CWE-78
CVE-2024-43655Shared CWE-250, CWE-78
CVE-2026-48098Shared CWE-250, CWE-78
CVE-2024-43653Shared CWE-250, CWE-78
CVE-2025-22367Shared CWE-250, CWE-78
CVE-2024-43651Shared CWE-250, CWE-78

Affected Assets

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 8 hardening rules · 5 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V10.2.3
  • V13.2.2
  • V8.2.1
  • V1.2.5

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Access enforcement directly stops unauthorized callers from invoking dangerous API methods or functions.

Least privilege reduces the permissions available to any process that could be subverted by injected commands.

Least functionality restricts available OS commands and interpreters, limiting the blast radius of injection.

Developer testing and evaluation can discover missing or incorrect command sanitization during development.

Secure engineering principles require proper neutralization of untrusted input before command construction.

Input validation directly neutralizes or rejects special characters that would otherwise alter OS command structure.

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.

PR.AA-05 mostly match
prevents

PR.AA-05 directly enforces least privilege so largely eliminates CWE-250 at design time, yet the weakness can still arise from runtime escalation paths, third-party code, or misapplied role definitions outside this single control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

PR.PS-06's SDLC practices directly require secure coding and input handling that blocks command-injection defects, yet the single broad outcome leaves many specific neutralization vectors and verification gaps unaddressed.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability identification processes will surface exposed dangerous methods during assessment.

PR.IR-01 partial match
prevents

Logical access controls at the network/environment layer can limit reachability of exposed functions.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Routine patching/maintenance can remediate known command-injection CVEs in dependencies (partial forward) but does nothing to stop developers from introducing improper neutralization in custom code (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.

prevents

The requirement to restrict privileged access and apply segregation of duties limits the number of processes or accounts that must run with elevated rights, lowering the impact of unnecessary privilege assignments.

prevents

Requiring explicit justification and time-limited grants discourages the routine allocation of unnecessary privileges that would otherwise allow execution with more rights than required.

mitigates

Forcing distinct roles for initiating versus executing changes reduces the chance that an individual will run with unnecessary privileges to perform both steps.

finds

Independent scrutiny can identify processes or services still running with unnecessary privileges and drive their reduction before an attacker can abuse them.

prevents

Restricting privileged utilities to the fewest trusted users and requiring explicit authorization directly stops developers or operators from embedding or invoking code that runs with unnecessary elevated rights.

prevents

Mandating separate non-privileged identities for routine work and restricting privileged accounts to administrative tasks reduces the chance that everyday operations run with unnecessary elevated rights.

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).

Ubuntu 22.04 (3 rules)
  • V-260559 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS must ensure only users who need access to security functions are part of sudo group. prevents CWE-749
  • V-260529 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS must be configured so that remote X connections are disabled, unless to fulfill documented and validated mission requirements. prevents CWE-749
  • V-260557 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS must be configured to use AppArmor. prevents CWE-749
Ubuntu 24.04 (1 rule)
  • V-270748 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS must ensure only users who need access to security functions are part of sudo group. prevents CWE-749
Windows 10 (1 rule)
  • V-220712 Only accounts responsible for the administration of a system must have Administrator rights on the system. prevents CWE-250
Windows Server 2016 (1 rule)
  • V-225007 Only administrators responsible for the member server or standalone or nondomain-joined system must have Administrator rights on the system. prevents CWE-250
Windows Server 2019 (1 rule)
  • V-205746 Windows Server 2019 must only allow Administrators responsible for the member server or standalone or nondomain-joined system to have Administrator rights on the system. prevents CWE-250

References