SecureDrop: Onion Service client auth credentials copied to Monitor Server
- Exploited
- No known exploitation
- Fix
- Fixed in 2.16.1
- Who is exposed
- Not reported
Do first: Upgrade to a fixed version: 2.16.1.
- Last modified
- A 0-100 score for how much a CVE matters across the industry: exploitation, exposure, how widely the software is used, severity and whether a fix exists.What do these mean? →
- 6/100 · provisional
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
Summary
SecureDrop, an open-source whistleblower submission system, copies Onion Service client authentication credentials to the Monitor Server when the install playbook runs with journalist alerts disabled. An attacker would need to take over the privileged Monitor Server first, and would then need to reach it over the network with high-privilege access and a user action, so it is a hard path to exploit.
Written by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5 from the sources below. Verify against them.
Read the original 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.
cve.now Index
- Exploitation?/40Unknown. No CISA SSVC exploitation rating yet
- Exposure3/25Reachable over the network · Unknown: No advisory context yet
- Reach?/20Unknown. No tracked technology or package matched
- Severity2.6/10CVSS 2.6
- No patch0/5No signal
What would change the score
- Would score about 61 if added to CISA KEV
- Would score about 56 if CISA's SSVC rates exploitation active
- Would score about 25 if advisories confirm default setups are exposed
What to do
Upgrade to a fixed version: 2.16.1.
Timeline
- CVE published
- First seen by cve.now
Affected versions
- freedomofpress securedrop
From 2.13.0 · fixed in 2.16.1
Evidence 3
- Advisory
- Repository
- Repository
Corrections
None so far.
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Questions about CVE-2026-71863
Is CVE-2026-71863 being exploited?
It is not in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and CISA's SSVC assessment does not mark exploitation as active. That does not mean it has not been attacked: vendors and researchers can report attacks before CISA lists them. No public exploit code is tracked.Source: cve.now feed data
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-71863?
securedrop: from 2.13.0 before 2.16.1.Source: cve.now feed data
How do I fix CVE-2026-71863?
Upgrade to a fixed version: 2.16.1.Source: cve.now feed data