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Fencer Intel
medium 5.0

CVE-2026-50000 json

SecureDrop: API session token reuse against the Journalist Interface web UI

published 4mo ago modified 12d ago also EUVD-2026-114255 , GHSA-78xq-8jf3-gpfx

Unreviewed: the maintainers' own advisory

Published by the maintainers on their GitHub repository freedomofpress/securedrop. GitHub has not reviewed it into the GitHub Advisory Database, so the affected packages and versions are the maintainers' word. Read the full advisory on GitHub.

cvss
5.0
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 30%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower submission system that media organizations can use to securely accept documents from, and communicate with anonymous sources. From 2.5.0 until 2.16.0, the `Journalist Interface` can accept an `API session` token against the `web UI` because its `SessionInterface` keeps a mutable session key prefix that changes with each request and persists across requests. API and web sessions were separated in `Redis` starting in version 2.5.0, but prefix corruption confuses those session namespaces. An attacker who already has access to the secret `Journalist Interface` onion address, the required authentication access and a recent nonexpired `API session` token can reuse that token against the `web UI` until its natural expiry, at most eight hours. The corrupted prefix can also prevent logout from deleting the correct `Redis` session, although normal expiry still applies. A compromised journalist can access encrypted submissions and perform broad actions on source submissions, but this issue does not expose plaintext submissions or affect the running system's availability. This issue is fixed in version 2.16.0.

Patch / fix

  • freedom securedrop 2.16.0

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
12d ago

Exploit prediction

0.36% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 30% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 5.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N

Affected products

  • freedomofpress securedrop

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

The maintainers of freedomofpress/securedrop published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.