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

Back
New CVE Detected

CVE-2026-72920 – Unauthenticated IAM RCE/Admin Takeover – SeaweedFS Filer before 4.24

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

Subscribe to Email Alerts
Subscribe to RSS Feed

Summary

CVE-2026-72920 is a Missing Authentication for Critical Function vulnerability (CWE-306) in SeaweedFS. The filer’s IAM gRPC service registers and accepts requests without any authentication when the jwt.filer_signing.key setting is left unconfigured, allowing any network client to invoke user-creation and access-key-minting RPCs. This grants an unauthenticated attacker full S3 administrative control over the SeaweedFS cluster, and the issue is rated Critical with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8.

Technical details

  • Root cause: the SeaweedIdentityAccessManagement gRPC service exposed on the filer’s gRPC listener lacked per-RPC authentication checks; JWT signing-key configuration was not enforced, and mTLS listener-level ACLs only restrict access at the port level, not per RPC.
  • Trigger condition: exploitable whenever jwt.filer_signing.key is unset in security.toml, leaving IAM RPCs (e.g., CreateUser, PutPolicy, CreateAccessKey, DeleteUser) callable without credentials.
  • Attack vector: network access to the filer’s gRPC port; no authentication or user interaction required.
  • Impact: attacker can create users, mint S3 access keys, and obtain administrative control over S3 access on the affected SeaweedFS deployment, impacting confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Affected software

  • SeaweedFS (seaweedfs/seaweedfs) filer versions prior to 4.24

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 SeaweedFS to version 4.24 or later, which requires a Bearer token signed with the filer’s JWT signing key for all IAM gRPC calls and refuses to register the IAM service if no signing key is configured.
  • If unable to patch immediately:
    • Restrict network access to the filer’s gRPC port to trusted hosts only.
    • Configure jwt.filer_signing.key in security.toml so IAM RPCs require signed Bearer tokens.
    • Review existing S3 users/access keys for signs of unauthorized creation.

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