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Medium · 5.1 CVE-2026-16895 EUVD-2026-66836GHSA-3p6c-gvpg-f24w

Authentication Bypass in Metasploit JSON-RPC Service When DB Health Check Fails

Published Aug 27, 2026 · Updated Aug 27, 2026 · Assigned by rapid7

Description

A logic vulnerability (fail-open condition) has been identified within the Metasploit Framework's JSON-RPC web service interface. When an exception occurs during the database health check (db.check) and the environment variable MSF_WS_JSON_RPC_API_TOKEN is not explicitly set, the application resets the internal state flag msf.auth_initialized to false. The ApiToken Warden authentication strategy misinterprets this false value as an indicator that authentication is not initialized or required, thereby granting unauthenticated local access to the JSON-RPC request dispatcher.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
Rapid7 Metasploit-framework < 6.5.2 6.5.2

References