CVE-2026-86259 in OpenMAIC
Summary
by MITRE • 09/06/2026
OpenMAIC before 1.0.1 skips server-side request forgery validation in non-production builds, allowing unauthenticated attackers to reach cloud instance metadata services. Attackers can supply arbitrary provider URLs via the x-base-url header or baseUrl parameter to access sensitive cloud credentials and metadata.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/06/2026
The vulnerability identified in OpenMAIC versions prior to 1.0.1 represents a critical security misconfiguration that exposes internal infrastructure components to external exploitation through Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF). This flaw specifically affects non-production builds, where development or testing environments often operate with relaxed security controls compared to hardened production deployments. The core technical deficiency lies in the application's failure to validate and restrict outbound HTTP requests initiated by the server itself. By skipping SSRF validation checks, the software allows an unauthenticated actor to dictate the destination of these internal network calls, effectively turning the vulnerable service into a proxy for malicious reconnaissance or credential theft operations against cloud infrastructure.
From a technical perspective, the exploitation vector relies on two primary input points: the x-base-url HTTP header and the baseUrl query parameter. An attacker can inject arbitrary Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) targeting internal metadata services provided by major cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, or Microsoft Azure. These metadata endpoints are designed to provide instance-specific configuration data, including temporary security credentials, IAM roles, and network configurations, without requiring authentication from the instance itself. Because OpenMAIC processes these requests server-side without verifying that the target IP address belongs to an allowed internal range or is not a reserved link-local address like 169.254.169.254 commonly used for AWS metadata access, it successfully forwards the request and returns the sensitive response data to the attacker.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe, primarily due to its unauthenticated nature. Since no valid credentials are required to trigger the SSRF condition, any internet-facing instance running a vulnerable version of OpenMAIC can be exploited remotely with minimal effort. Successful exploitation allows attackers to retrieve cloud instance metadata, which frequently contains temporary access keys and secret tokens associated with IAM roles attached to the virtual machine or container. These credentials often possess broad permissions within the cloud environment, enabling lateral movement across services, unauthorized data exfiltration, or even full compromise of the underlying infrastructure if the role has administrative privileges. This scenario aligns directly with MITRE ATT&CK technique T1504 (Weakness in Configuration) and specifically relates to SSRF patterns documented under CWE-918, which covers server-side request forgery vulnerabilities where web applications fetch remote resources without validating user-supplied URLs.
To mitigate this risk, immediate remediation involves upgrading OpenMAIC to version 1.0.1 or later, where the developers have implemented proper input validation and SSRF protections for non-production builds as well. In environments where an upgrade is not immediately feasible, network-level controls should be enforced to block outbound traffic from application servers to known cloud metadata IP ranges using firewall rules or security group policies. Additionally, implementing strict allow-listing of permitted outbound domains and utilizing proxy configurations that inspect and filter HTTP requests can provide a layer of defense-in-depth. It is also critical to ensure that IAM roles attached to instances running OpenMAIC adhere to the principle of least privilege, minimizing the potential blast radius should an SSRF exploit succeed in retrieving credentials.