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CVE-2026-38447 – Predictable API Key Generation (Broken Cryptography) – osTicket 1.18.3 and earlier

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Summary

CVE-2026-38447 is a broken-cryptography vulnerability in osTicket, an open-source support-ticket/helpdesk platform. The application generates REST API keys using MD5 over predictable inputs, drastically reducing the effective keyspace and allowing an attacker to predict or brute-force valid keys. It is rated CRITICAL with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8.

Technical details

  • Root cause: API keys are derived from md5(time() . $vars['ipaddr'] . md5(Misc::randCode(16))) in include/class.api.php. Building the key from MD5 combined with low-entropy inputs undermines the randomness expected of an authentication token.
  • Predictable inputs: The construction folds in the current Unix timestamp (time()) and the client IP address ($vars['ipaddr']), both of which are guessable or knowable, shrinking the search space well below that of a truly random token.
  • Trigger conditions: An attacker who can narrow the approximate key-creation timestamp and the associated allowed IP address can predict or brute-force the generated key value.
  • Attack vector: Network-exploitable without authentication. A valid API key grants REST access enabling ticket creation as arbitrary users, triggering of cron job execution, and access to ticket data permitted to the key.

Affected software

  • osTicket version 1.18.3 and earlier.

Severity

  • CVSS v3.1 base score: 9.8 (Critical)
  • Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Mitigation and recommended actions

  • Immediate: Upgrade to an osTicket release that incorporates the upstream fix (reference commit feccb6a3a90863fd31215ee738b39762177e658c), which replaces the MD5-and-predictable-input construction with a cryptographically secure random generator (e.g. bin2hex(random_bytes(32))).
  • If no patch can be applied: Restrict access to the osTicket REST API endpoints at the network layer, rotate any existing API keys, and enforce strict IP allow-listing on API access.

How IONIX identifies potentially affected assets

IONIX matches the following signals against data already collected when it crawled the asset; identifying the technology sends no request beyond that crawl.

  • Set-Cookie response header: OSTSESSID

References

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