Security Resilience

CVE-2026-83540

Auth Bypass in Wolfssh 1.4.15 – 1.6.0

Published
07 October 2026
Modified
13 October 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 7.7
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0036 29th percentile
Risk Priority 37 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-2026-83540 is a high-severity Improper Authentication (CWE-287) vulnerability in Wolfssh Wolfssh. Its CVSS base score is 7.7 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data Obfuscation (T1001); ranked at the 29th 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 AC-12 (Session Termination) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

When password or public key authentication is used with the Windows port of wolfSSHd, the Windows logon token acquired for one authenticated connection is not released before a token is acquired for a subsequent connection, resulting in user login poisoning…

more

between connections. A less privileged user with a valid account on the server can exploit this to force a login as a more privileged user. The vulnerability was introduced with the initial Windows port of wolfSSHd in wolfSSH version 1.4.15 and affects all versions through 1.5.0. Non-Windows builds of wolfSSHd are not affected.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001 Data Obfuscation Command And Control
Adversaries may obfuscate command and control traffic to make it more difficult to detect.
T1003 OS Credential Dumping Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump credentials to obtain account login and credential material, normally in the form of a hash or a clear text password.
T1003.001 LSASS Memory Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access credential material stored in the process memory of the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS).
T1003.005 Cached Domain Credentials Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access cached domain credentials used to allow authentication to occur in the event a domain controller is unavailable.
T1007 System Service Discovery Discovery
Adversaries may try to gather information about registered local system services.
T1011.001 Exfiltration Over Bluetooth Exfiltration
Adversaries may attempt to exfiltrate data over Bluetooth rather than the command and control channel.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-14942Same product: Wolfssh Wolfssh
CVE-2024-2873Same product: Wolfssh Wolfssh
CVE-2025-11625Same product: Wolfssh Wolfssh
CVE-2026-83742Same product: Wolfssh Wolfssh
CVE-2026-0930Same product: Wolfssh Wolfssh
CVE-2025-11624Same product: Wolfssh Wolfssh
CVE-2025-15382Same product: Wolfssh Wolfssh
CVE-2026-81535Same product: Wolfssh Wolfssh
CVE-2026-16516Same product: Wolfssh Wolfssh
CVE-2024-20301Shared CWE-287, CWE-613

Affected Assets

wolfssh
wolfssh
1.4.15 — 1.6.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

AC-12 directly requires automatic session termination after a defined period, structurally preventing reuse of expired session identifiers.

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-01 partial match
blocks

Credential lifecycle management directly includes enforcing session expiration to prevent reuse.

PR.AA-03 partial match
blocks

Authentication mechanisms can incorporate session timeout checks but do not inherently address expiration policy.

PR.AA-05 partial match
blocks

Authorization policy enforcement and review covers terminating stale sessions to limit access scope.

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.

removes
removes
blocks

Mandating segregated approval and oversight for non-human identities reduces the chance that weak or orphaned credentials can be exploited for unauthorized authentication.

blocks

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.

removes
removes

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-287, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-295, CWE-306.

References