The Rapid7 Metasploit msf-ws suffers from a missing authentication vulnerability whereby the REST API grants an unauthenticated "bootstrap"…
CVE-2026-121139
The Rapid7 Metasploit msf-ws suffers from a missing authentication vulnerability whereby the REST API grants an unauthenticated "bootstrap" exemption so that the very first administrator can be created when the users table is empty. While the table is empty, POST /api/v1/users is exempt from authentication by design: the route handler calls warden.authenticate!(scope: :adminapi), which resolves to AdminApiToken. The inherited ApiToken#authenticate! short-circuits and returns success!() whenever msf.authinitialized is false, without ever evaluating AdminApiToken's administrator check. In that state the endpoint creates a user — including an administrator — for an entirely unauthenticated caller. This issue has been fixed in version 6.5.9.
Assessment
- CVSS
- 7.3 (v4.0)
- Severity
- High
- Known exploited
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Exploit availability
- Nothing found in Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or public PoC repositories
- Published
- 5 November 2026
- Last updated
- 5 November 2026
- Affected
- Rapid7 · Metasploit Framework
- Assigner
- rapid7
CVSS vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
At the source
References
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