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

Back
New CVE Detected

CVE-2026-77557 – Privilege Escalation via Improper Access Control – Ubiquiti UniFi Protect AI Key <

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

Subscribe to Email Alerts
Subscribe to RSS Feed

Summary

CVE-2026-77557 is a Critical (CVSS 9.8) Improper Access Control vulnerability (CWE-284) affecting the Ubiquiti UniFi Protect AI Key. A malicious actor with network access to the device can exploit the flaw to escalate privileges without any authentication or user interaction. The vulnerability was disclosed by Ubiquiti and is fixed in AI Key firmware version 2.2.6.

Technical details

  • Root cause: Improper access control (CWE-284) in the UniFi Protect AI Key allows privilege boundaries to be bypassed.
  • Trigger conditions: An attacker only needs network-level access to the device; no credentials or prior authentication are required.
  • Attack vector: Network (remote), with low attack complexity, no privileges required, and no user interaction.
  • Impact: Successful exploitation allows privilege escalation on the device, resulting in high impact to confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Affected software

  • Ubiquiti UniFi Protect AI Key: all versions prior to 2.2.6.

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 UniFi Protect AI Key devices to firmware version 2.2.6 or later.
  • If immediate patching is not possible: Restrict network access to UniFi Protect AI Key devices to trusted management networks only, ensure the devices are not directly exposed to the internet, and monitor for unauthorized privilege changes until the update can be applied.

How IONIX identifies potentially affected assets

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

  • Page title: UniFi Protect

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