Summary
CVE-2026-71854 is a missing-authentication and authorization-bypass vulnerability (CWE-306, CWE-639, CWE-862) in OpenAEV, an open-source platform for planning and running cyber adversary simulations. Unauthenticated remote attackers can read lesson data and create answers attributed to arbitrary users. The severity is High (CVSS 8.2).
Technical details
- Root cause: The
/api/player/**lessons endpoints require no authentication and trust a client-supplieduserIdquery parameter. They do not verify that the caller is that user or a member of the exercise. - Trigger conditions: The attacker must know an exercise UUID. The issue affects a default installation.
- Attack vector: Network, with low complexity, no privileges and no user interaction.
- Impact: An attacker can read lessons-learned questions and answers, including each answer’s author identity. An attacker can also create or overwrite answers attributed to any user.
Affected software
- OpenAEV (openaev) versions earlier than 2.260622.0
Severity
- CVSS v3.1 base score: 8.2 (High)
- Vector:
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N
Mitigation and recommended actions
- Immediate: upgrade OpenAEV to version 2.260622.0 or later.
- If you cannot patch immediately: restrict network access to the OpenAEV instance, in particular to the
/api/player/**paths, until you upgrade. This is a general precaution and is not a vendor-documented workaround. - See the vendor advisory for details.

