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OpenAdvisories
High · 8.1 CVE-2026-33496 EUVD-2026-16289GHSA-4mq7-pvjg-xp2rGO-2026-4799

Ory Oathkeeper has an authentication bypass by cache key confusion

Published Mar 26, 2026 · Updated Mar 30, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

ORY Oathkeeper is an Identity & Access Proxy (IAP) and Access Control Decision API that authorizes HTTP requests based on sets of Access Rules. Versions prior to 26.2.0 are vulnerable to authentication bypass due to cache key confusion. The `oauth2_introspection` authenticator cache does not distinguish tokens that were validated with different introspection URLs. An attacker can therefore legitimately use a token to prime the cache, and subsequently use the same token for rules that use a different introspection server. Ory Oathkeeper has to be configured with multiple `oauth2_introspection` authenticator servers, each accepting different tokens. The authenticators also must be configured to use caching. An attacker has to have a way to gain a valid token for one of the configured introspection servers. Starting in version 26.2.0, Ory Oathkeeper includes the introspection server URL in the cache key, preventing confusion of tokens. Update to the patched version of Ory Oathkeeper. If that is not immediately possible, disable caching for `oauth2_introspection` authenticators.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
ory oathkeeper < 26.2.0 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Leap 16.0 govulncheck-vulndb 0.0.20260723T184607-160000.1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:21483-1
openSUSE Leap 15.6 govulncheck-vulndb 0.0.20260326T203309-150000.1.155.2 SUSE-SU-2026:1135-1

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
Go github.com/ory/oathkeeper < 0.40.10-0.20260320084801-198a2bc82a99 0.40.10-0.20260320084801-198a2bc82a99 GHSA-4mq7-pvjg-xp2r

Advisories 2

References