# CVE-2026-27960: OpenCTI privilege escalation and unauthenticated access via default admin account

- Exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-05-05
- CVSS: 9.8 CRITICAL (v3.1)
- EPSS: 7.1% (94th percentile)
- CWE: CWE-287

OpenCTI is an open source platform for managing cyber threat intelligence knowledge and observables. In versions 6.6.0 through 6.9.12, there is a privilege escalation vulnerability that can be exploited by unauthenticated attackers to query the API as any existing user, including the default admin account. This issue has been fixed in version 6.9.13. As a workaround, the default admin can be disabled using the `APP__ADMIN__EXTERNALLY_MANAGED` configuration.

## Edge WAF coverage (claimed by vendors, not measured)

| Vendor | Status | First rule | Days after publication |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | No public claim | — | — |
| AWS | No public claim | — | — |
| Microsoft Azure | No public claim | — | — |
| Google Cloud | No public claim | — | — |
| Fastly | Before feed history | — | — |
| F5 | Rule published | 2026-10-21 | 169 |
| Akamai | No public source | — | — |
| OWASP CRS | No public claim | — | — |

### F5

- 2026-10-21 · new · rule 200013239
  > Added: signature 200013239 "OpenCTI Authentication Bypass" (Authentication/Authorization Attacks, risk High), systems: Other Web Server. References: CVE-2026-27960.
  Source: https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs-v2/platform/changelogs/security-details-changelog

## Our test (measured)

- OWASP Core Rule Set 4.25.0, paranoia level 1, anomaly threshold 5, default CRS settings: passed (0 of 1 requests blocked), template CVE-2026-27960, 2026-11-02
- OWASP Core Rule Set 4.25.0, paranoia level 2, anomaly threshold 5, default CRS settings: passed (0 of 1 requests blocked), template CVE-2026-27960, 2026-11-02

"No public claim" means no vendor statement names this CVE; "Before feed history" means the CVE is older than the vendor feed. In both cases generic rules may still block it.

HTML: https://cve.vigilbase.com/cve/CVE-2026-27960 · JSON: https://cve.vigilbase.com/api/v1/cves/CVE-2026-27960