Security Resilience

CVE-2026-96656

Path Traversal in Plex Media Server ≤ 1.43.3.10861

CISA KEVActive ExploitationEUVD ExploitedPath Traversal
Published
23 September 2026
Modified
21 October 2026
KEV Added
20 October 2026
CVSS Score v4 8.6
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/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 0.018 78th percentile
Risk Priority 75 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). EPSS, Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), epss.first.org. Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2026-96656 is a high-severity External Control of File Name or Path (CWE-73) vulnerability in Plex Media Server. Its CVSS base score is 8.6 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Odbcconf (T1218.008); ranked in the top 22% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

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)

A06:2025 Insecure Design

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Plex Media Server before 1.43.3.10861 allows an admin user to write arbitrary files that may be executed on load. The preference TranscoderH264Options is appended verbatim to x264's option string on every transcode. At startup, all .so files are run without…

more

signature, execute bit, or symbol checks.

CWE(s)
CWE-73
KEV Date Added
20 October 2026

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

MITRE ATT&CK v20.0

T1218.008 Odbcconf Stealth
Adversaries may abuse odbcconf.
attack.mitre.org →
T1574.006 Dynamic Linker Hijacking Stealth
Adversaries may execute their own malicious payloads by hijacking environment variables the dynamic linker uses to load shared libraries.
attack.mitre.org →
T1137.002 Office Test Persistence
Adversaries may abuse the Microsoft Office "Office Test" Registry key to obtain persistence on a compromised system.
attack.mitre.org →
T1221 Template Injection Stealth
Adversaries may create or modify references in user document templates to conceal malicious code or force authentication attempts.
attack.mitre.org →
T1083 File and Directory Discovery Discovery
Adversaries may enumerate files and directories or may search in specific locations of a host or network share for certain information within a file system.
attack.mitre.org →
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-96652Same product: Plex Media Serverboth on KEV
CVE-2026-96655Same product: Plex Media Serverboth on KEV
CVE-2026-96654Same product: Plex Media Serverboth on KEV
CVE-2026-96651Same product: Plex Media Server
CVE-2025-69415Same product: Plex Media Server
CVE-2025-69416Same product: Plex Media Server
CVE-2025-69417Same product: Plex Media Server
CVE-2025-69414Same product: Plex Media Server
CVE-2024-43451Shared CWE-73both on KEV
CVE-2025-33053Shared CWE-73both on KEV

Affected Assets

plex
media server
≤ 1.43.3.10861

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V5.3.2

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

AC-3 Access Enforcement partial match

Enforces authorization checks on the actual resource accessed, blocking unauthorized files even when a malicious path is supplied.

AC-6 Least Privilege partial match

Least-privilege limits the set of files or directories any subject can affect, shrinking the blast radius of a path-control flaw.

SI-10 Information Input Validation partial match

Input validation directly rejects or sanitizes untrusted path strings before they reach filesystem operations.

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.PS-06 full match
blocks

Secure SDLC practices include input validation and path sanitization that eliminate this weakness.

PR.AA-05 mostly match
blocks

Least-privilege file authorization directly limits damage from externally controlled paths.

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.

A.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
finds

Security testing can detect path-traversal issues but does not itself implement preventive controls.

A.8.28 Secure coding partial match
prevents

Secure coding standards require canonicalization, allow-listing, and bounds checks on file paths, directly eliminating CWE-73.

References