CVE-2026-71863 json
SecureDrop: Onion Service client auth credentials copied to Monitor Server
published 4mo ago modified yesterday also EUVD-2026-118497 , GHSA-rqwh-4873-322p
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
- 2.6
- version 3.1, CNA
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 0.2%
- EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 11%
- 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 2.13.0 until 2.16.1, running the securedrop-admin install Ansible playbook with journalist alerts disabled leaves the journalist alert key filename empty, causing the copy task to transfer every file in ~/.config/securedrop-admin/, including Onion Service client authentication credentials, to the Monitor Server. An attacker must first compromise the privileged Monitor Server to obtain the credentials, and the credentials remain an additional protection layer rather than sufficient access by themselves because the Journalist Interface still requires a username, passphrase, and MFA, while SSH access still requires SSH keys. This issue is fixed in version 2.16.1.
Patch / fix
- freedom securedrop 2.16.1
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- Exploitation
- none
- Automatable
- no
- Technical impact
- partial
- Assessed
- yesterday
Exploit prediction
0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 11% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).
CVSS scores
| assigned by | version | score | vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | 3.1 | 2.6 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N |
Affected products
- freedomofpress securedrop
Classification
- Weakness
-
- CWE-201 Insertion of Sensitive Information Into Sent Data
References
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2026-71863
- NVD CVE-2026-71863
- Maintainer advisory GHSA-rqwh-4873-322p
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.