CVE-2026-18486
IBM ContextForge MCP Gateway is affected by credential disclosure and privilege escalation via jq filter execution
02 Description
IBM ContextForge MCP Gateway is affected by credential disclosure and privilege escalation via jq filter execution
03 Exploitation and scoring
- Exploitation
- Assessed, none found. CISA's assessment recorded neither public exploit code nor evidence of exploitation when it was made.
- SSVC decision
- ExploitationnoneCISA recorded no public exploit code and no evidence of exploitation.
- AutomatablenoAt least one step from reconnaissance to exploitation cannot be reliably automated.
- Technical ImpacttotalSuccessful exploitation gives total control of the vulnerable component.
- EPSS probability
- 0.58% probability of exploitation activity in the next 30 days.
- EPSS percentile
- Equal to or higher than the score of 47.6% of scored records. A rank, not a probability.
- NVD base score
- 8.8 (CVSS v3.x), scored by the NVD independently of the CNA.
- NVD CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- NVD analysis status
- Analyzed. NVD last modified this record on 2026-09-15.
- Red Hat severity
- No Red Hat rating. Red Hat rates the CVEs that affect its products.
Exploit-prediction scores from FIRST. Independent scoring and analysis status from the NVD. Vendor severity from Red Hat. Exploitation assessment and catalog membership from CISA.
04 Metadata
- Published
- 2026-09-04 16:24Z1 MO AGO
- Last updated
- 2026-09-10 15:07Z1 MO AGO
- Reserved
- 2026-07-31
- Assigning CNA
- ibm
- Record state
- PUBLISHED
- Severity
- High (CVSS 8.8)
- CNA CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-200Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized ActorClass
- Data version
- 5.2
- Document digest
- c5d0dd812e0d58f4867a473bf3a0c45cf2c859630568dba331c36a6bedfd0675
05 Affected products
06 References
07 Remediation
IBM strongly recommends addressing the vulnerability now. Product(s)Version(s) number and/or range Remediation/Fix/InstructionsIBM ContextForge MCP Gateway<=v1.0.7Upgrade to v1.0.8. See [release notes]( https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge/releases/tag/v1.0.8) https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge/releases/tag/v1.0.8%29 . Rotate `JWT_SECRET_KEY`, `AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET`, `DATABASE_URL`, `REDIS_URL`, and `BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD` on any deployment running prior versions. Note: From version v1.0.8 on a more complex AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET is required: Action required before upgrading: run the one-shot re-encryption script (mcpgateway/scripts/migrate_enc_secret.py) with the old and new keys while the gateway is stopped. See the full rotation guide at docs/docs/operations/auth-encryption-secret-rotation.md https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge/blob/v1.0.8/docs/docs/operations/auth-encryption-secret-rotation.md for step-by-step instructions, deployment-specific commands, and special cases (Helm/Kubernetes, Python package consumers, rollback).