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

Back
New CVE Detected

CVE-2026-80462 – Privilege Escalation / Missing Authentication – Chef Automate 4.13.516–4.13.519

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

Subscribe to Email Alerts
Subscribe to RSS Feed

Summary

CVE-2026-80462 is a critical missing-authentication vulnerability (CWE-306) in Chef Automate’s API gateway and identity validation path. It allows an unauthenticated network attacker to gain elevated access to protected Chef Automate functionality under specific conditions, affecting versions 4.13.516 through 4.13.519. The flaw carries the maximum CVSS v3.1 score of 10.0.

Technical details

  • Root cause: missing authentication controls (CWE-306) in the API gateway and identity validation mechanisms of Chef Automate.
  • Under specific conditions, requests to protected Chef Automate functionality can bypass the identity validation path without presenting valid credentials.
  • Attack vector is network-based, requires no privileges and no user interaction, making the vulnerability remotely exploitable by any actor able to reach the exposed API gateway.
  • Impact includes unauthorized access to internal configuration data, identity and access management operations, protected APIs, and infrastructure-wide actions, with complete loss of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Affected software

  • Progress Chef Automate versions 4.13.516 through 4.13.519 (Linux x86 platform)
  • Versions prior to 4.13.516 are not affected
  • Fixed in version 4.13.520 and later

Severity

  • CVSS v3.1 Base Score: 10.0 (Critical)
  • Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Mitigation and recommended actions

  • Immediate: Upgrade Chef Automate to version 4.13.520 or later.
  • If immediate patching is not possible: restrict network access to the Chef Automate API gateway to trusted networks/administrative hosts only, and monitor for unexpected or unauthenticated requests to identity validation and API gateway endpoints until the upgrade can be applied. No other workaround has been published.

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