CVE-2026-65145 in NeMo Agent Toolkit
Summary
by MITRE • 10/27/2026
NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit contains a vulnerability where a attacker could cause a missing authentication issue. This vulnerability might lead to code execution, escalation of privileges, data tampering, denial of service, and information disclosure.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/27/2026
The NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit represents a sophisticated framework designed for developing and deploying large language model-based agents, facilitating complex interactions between AI models and external tools or APIs. Within this ecosystem, the integrity of authentication mechanisms is paramount to ensure that only authorized entities can invoke specific functions or access sensitive data streams. A critical vulnerability has been identified wherein an attacker can exploit a missing authentication check within the toolkit's operational logic. This flaw fundamentally undermines the security boundary intended by the framework, allowing unauthorized actors to bypass established identity verification protocols. The absence of proper authentication checks creates a direct pathway for malicious entities to interact with internal components that should remain restricted to authenticated users or services, thereby compromising the foundational trust model upon which secure agent-based applications are built.
From a technical perspective, this vulnerability manifests as an authorization failure where specific endpoints or function calls within the NeMo Agent Toolkit do not validate the identity of the requesting party before executing sensitive operations. In many modern AI frameworks, agents often possess elevated privileges to interact with databases, execute code snippets, or query external APIs on behalf of users. When authentication is omitted for these high-privilege actions, an attacker can craft specific requests that trigger these functions without providing valid credentials. This lack of enforcement allows the system to process commands as if they originated from a trusted source. The technical flaw likely resides in the middleware or routing layer where request validation occurs, failing to enforce mandatory access controls before passing control to the underlying agent logic.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe and multifaceted due to the powerful nature of AI agents. Because these agents are designed to perform actions autonomously, a successful exploitation can lead directly to arbitrary code execution on the host system running the toolkit. An attacker could inject malicious payloads that get executed by the agent's runtime environment, potentially gaining full control over the underlying infrastructure. Furthermore, this flaw facilitates privilege escalation, allowing low-privileged users or external attackers to assume higher-level roles within the application hierarchy. Data tampering becomes a significant risk as authenticated operations such as database updates or file modifications can be performed without restriction, leading to data integrity loss and potential corruption of critical datasets used for training or inference.
In addition to confidentiality breaches, this vulnerability enables information disclosure by allowing attackers to query internal states or retrieve sensitive configuration details that are not meant for public access. The toolkit may expose model weights, API keys, or user-specific context windows to unauthorized parties. Furthermore, the ability to trigger resource-intensive operations without authentication can lead to denial of service conditions. An attacker could flood the system with requests designed to exhaust computational resources, causing latency spikes or complete unavailability of the AI services for legitimate users. This combination of impacts highlights the critical nature of securing agent toolkits against unauthorized access vectors.
To mitigate these risks, immediate remediation should focus on enforcing strict authentication and authorization checks at all entry points within the NeMo Agent Toolkit. Developers must ensure that every function call intended to interact with external systems or modify internal state requires valid credential verification before execution. Implementing role-based access control can further restrict which authenticated users are permitted to invoke specific agent capabilities. Regular security audits and penetration testing should be conducted to identify similar gaps in other parts of the framework. Additionally, adopting defense-in-depth strategies such as input validation, rate limiting, and monitoring for anomalous request patterns can help detect and prevent exploitation attempts even if authentication bypasses occur.
This vulnerability aligns with CWE-287, which describes Improper Authentication, a common flaw where an actor is able to impersonate another by failing to prove their identity correctly. It also relates closely to CWE-862, Missing Authorization, as the system fails to verify that the authenticated user has permission for the specific action being performed. From an offensive security perspective, this aligns with MITRE ATT&CK techniques such as T1078 Valid Accounts and potentially T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter if code execution is achieved through agent actions. Organizations utilizing NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit should prioritize patching to these vulnerabilities and review their deployment configurations to ensure that no unauthenticated endpoints are exposed in production environments, thereby maintaining the integrity and availability of AI-driven applications.