openaev: Weak Password Recovery Mechanism for Forgotten Password
CVE-2026-24467 is a critical-severity weak password recovery mechanism for forgotten password vulnerability in openaev from OpenAEV-Platform, with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.8 out of 10. It can be exploited remotely over the network by an unauthenticated attacker, without any action from a user. Affected openaev versions: >= 1.0.0, < 2.0.13. The record does not name a fixed version, so check the vendor advisory. There is no confirmed exploitation so far. EPSS estimates a 0.9% chance of exploitation within 30 days, higher than 60% of scored CVEs.
Critical severity: a successful attack would have severe impact.
What to do
- Check which version of openaev you run against the affected versions below, and install the vendor's latest release.
- Read the advisory on github.com for workarounds and exact fixed builds.
- Until you can update, restrict network access to the affected service so it is not reachable from untrusted networks.
Affected products and versions
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAEV-Platform | openaev | >= 1.0.0, < 2.0.13 | Not stated |
Version data comes from the organisation that assigned the CVE. Confirm against the vendor advisory before deciding you are unaffected.
How the severity score breaks down
- Attack vector
- NetworkCan be exploited remotely over a network, including the internet.
- Attack complexity
- LowNo special conditions are needed; the attack works reliably.
- Privileges required
- NoneNo account or login is needed.
- User interaction
- NoneNo action by a victim is required.
- Scope
- UnchangedImpact stays within the vulnerable component.
- Confidentiality
- HighAll data handled by the component can be read.
- Integrity
- HighData or code can be modified at will.
- Availability
- HighThe component can be taken down completely.
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H. Scored by NVD.
| Scoring system | Score | Severity | Scored by |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS 3.1 | 9.0 | Critical | CNA (github.com) |
| CVSS 3.1 | 9.8 | Critical | NVD |
Official description
OpenAEV is an open source platform allowing organizations to plan, schedule and conduct cyber adversary simulation campaign and tests. Starting in version 1.0.0 and prior to version 2.0.13, OpenAEV's password reset implementation contains multiple security weaknesses that together allow reliable account takeover. The primary issue is that password reset tokens do not expire. Once a token is generated, it remains valid indefinitely, even if significant time has passed or if newer tokens are issued for the same account. This allows an attacker to accumulate valid password reset tokens over time and reuse them at any point in the future to reset a victim’s password. A secondary weakness is that password reset tokens are only 8 digits long. While an 8-digit numeric token provides 100,000,000 possible combinations (which is secure enough), the ability to generate large numbers of valid tokens drastically reduces the required number of attempts to guess a valid password reset token. For example, if an attacker generates 2,000 valid tokens, the brute-force effort is reduced to approximately 50,000 attempts, which is a trivially achievable number of requests for an automated attack. (100 requests per second can mathematically find a valid password reset token in 500 seconds.) By combining these flaws, an attacker can mass-generate valid password reset tokens and then brute-force them efficiently until a match is found, allowing the attacker to reset the victim’s password to a value of their choosing. The original password is not required, and the attack can be performed entirely without authentication. This vulnerability enables full account takeover that leads to platform compromise. An unauthenticated remote attacker can reset the password of any registered user account and gain complete access without authentication. Because user email addresses are exposed to other users by design, a single guessed or observed email address is sufficient to compromise even administrator accounts with non-guessable email addresses. This design flaw results in a reliable and scalable account takeover vulnerability that affects any registered user account in the system. Note: The vulnerability does not require OpenAEV to have the email service configured. The exploit does not depend on the target email address to be a real email address. It just needs to be registered to OpenAEV. Successful exploitation allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to access sensitive data (such as the Findings section of a simulation), modify payloads executed by deployed agents to compromise all hosts where agents are installed (therefore the Scope is changed). Users should upgrade to version 2.0.13 to receive a fix.
Source: the CVE record as published by its numbering authority, via NVD and CVE.org.
The underlying weakness: Weak Password Recovery Mechanism for Forgotten Password
The product contains a mechanism for users to recover or change their passwords without knowing the original password, but the mechanism is weak.
How developers prevent this class of flaw
- Make sure that all input supplied by the user to the password recovery mechanism is thoroughly filtered and validated.
- Do not use standard weak security questions and use several security questions.
- Make sure that there is throttling on the number of incorrect answers to a security question. Disable the password recovery functionality after a certain (small) number of incorrect guesses.
More Weak Password Recovery Mechanism for Forgotten Password vulnerabilities (CWE-640)
Timeline
- CVE record published.
- CISA published its SSVC assessment (exploitation: poc, automatable: no, technical impact: total).
- Record last changed materially (score, affected products, status or references).
References
Patches and release notes
Other references
Other vulnerabilities in openaev
- 8.2 High severity
Recent Weak Password Recovery Mechanism for Forgotten Password vulnerabilities
- 7.1 High severity
- 9.8 Critical severity
- 9.4 Critical severity
- 9.8 Critical severity
- 9.8 Critical severity
- 8.8 High severity
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