CVE-2026-71863SecureDrop: Onion Service client auth credentials copied to Monitor Server
- 2.6LowCVSS base score
- 0.21%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 88% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
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.
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 3 months later
· 3 months later
Published
- 4 days later
· 4 days later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Low2.6 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Deferred | 3.1 | Low2.6 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.21% · top 88% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Low 2.6.
Affected products
- affected >= 2.13.0, < 2.16.1
References
References3
- https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/security/advisories/GHSA-rqwh-4873-322p (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/commit/8947b8a69e0d13d2a0fa9f0082ecc2a28428cf4c (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/releases/tag/2.16.1 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-118497 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-71863)Record last updated .