Live Exposure Defense: From CVE to Confirmed Exposure in 12 Hours – See more

Back
New CVE Detected

CVE-2026-56782 – Authentication Bypass – Gorse Recommendation System before 0.5.10

Be the first to know when new zero-days emerge:

Subscribe to Email Alerts
Subscribe to RSS Feed

Summary

CVE-2026-56782 is a critical authentication bypass vulnerability (CWE-306: Missing Authentication for Critical Function) affecting Gorse, an open-source AI-powered recommender system engine, in all versions prior to 0.5.10. The flaw allows unauthenticated remote attackers to access the /api/dump and /api/restore endpoints without credentials whenever the admin_api_key configuration parameter is empty — which is the default out-of-box state. With a CVSS v3.1 score of 9.8 (Critical), this vulnerability poses a severe risk of full database exfiltration and data destruction against any publicly exposed Gorse instance running an unpatched version.

Technical details

  • Root cause: The /api/dump and /api/restore endpoints perform no authentication check when the admin_api_key configuration value is empty. Because admin_api_key is empty by default, no misconfiguration or special setup is required to trigger the vulnerability — the default installation is vulnerable.
  • Trigger condition: Any Gorse deployment running a version prior to 0.5.10 where admin_api_key has not been explicitly set in the configuration file is exploitable without further prerequisites.
  • Attack vector: Network-accessible; no privileges, credentials, or user interaction are required. An attacker need only reach the Gorse API port over the internet.
  • Impact via /api/dump: Complete exfiltration of the Gorse database, including user records, item data, and feedback data that may contain personally identifiable information (PII).
  • Impact via /api/restore: Complete overwrite of the dataset, enabling full destruction or poisoning of recommendation data and the underlying user/item corpus.

Affected software

  • gorse-io/gorse — all versions prior to 0.5.10

Severity

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

Mitigation and recommended actions

  • Patch: Upgrade to Gorse 0.5.10 or later. The fix is tracked in pull request #1294 ("Protect dump and restore endpoints") in the official repository.
  • Workaround (if immediate patching is not possible): Explicitly set a strong, non-empty value for admin_api_key in the Gorse configuration file, and restrict network access to the Gorse API port using firewall rules or reverse-proxy authentication so it is not directly reachable from the internet.

IONIX Status

The IONIX research team is tracking ongoing exploitation attempts and recommends immediate patching. Potentially affected assets are outlined in this post.

References

Are you exposed?

Get a free report of your organization’s exposure to this CVE and threat

  • Mapping of all Assets with this Technology
  • Identification of potentially exposed assets to this CVE
  • Confirmation of verified exploitable assets
Get Exposure Report

How IONIX’s External Exposure Management Platform Detects and Validates
Zero-Days to Shrink MTTR

1

Map your entire attack surface (continously)

IONIX uses multi-factor discovery methods, including DNS analysis, certificate mapping, metadata inspection, and more, to automatically map every internet-facing asset across your environment. This includes cloud instances, third-party platforms, shadow IT, and even forgotten infrastructure that traditional tools miss.

2

Monitor for new CVEs

Dozens of threat intel feeds using agentic technology are continuously analyzed to detect the appearance of proof-of-concept code, exploit kits, and indicators of active targeting. IONIX goes further by applying AI to proactively evaluate whether emerging vulnerabilities are likely to be exploited, even before PoCs go public.

3

Identify Potential External Exposures

Not all CVEs matter. IONIX filters vulnerabilities by asking attacker-centric questions: Can it be reached from the internet? Does it require authentication? Is it being exploited in the wild? This dramatically reduces noise and focuses teams on threats that can actually be weaponized.

4

Create Safe, Scalable Exploit Validations

IONIX transforms real-world PoCs into safe, non-intrusive test payloads that can be run in production environments without disruption. These simulations are precisely targeted to the systems that are vulnerable, ensuring rapid validation without unnecessary load.

5

Execute Exploit Validations

By combining context about software stack, versioning, exposure status, and reachability, IONIX ensures that only the right payloads are executed against the right assets, maximizing efficiency and minimizing risk.

6

Drive Fast and Actionable Remediation

Results are routed through integrations with ticketing, SOAR, and SIEM tools. Issues are written in plain language, bundled into remediation clusters, and prioritized based on asset criticality, exploitability, and blast radius. This shortens mean time to remediation (MTTR) and empowers teams to act with confidence.

Are you exposed?

Get a free report of your organization’s exposure to this CVE and threat

  • Mapping of all Assets with this Technology
  • Identification of potentially exposed assets to this CVE
  • Confirmation of verified exploitable assets
Get Exposure Report
Close

Subscribe to Threat Center RSS

Copy/paste the link below into your preferred RSS reader or follow these instructions to subscribe to Slack alerts.

Open RSS feedSlack setup instructions

Close

Get Real-Time CVE Alerts to Your Email

Be the first to know when new zero-days emerge