CVE-2026-87109 in Ops Manager
Summary
by MITRE • 10/09/2026
An authenticated Ops Manager organization member can retrieve another member's pending authenticator enrollment seed through user-listing endpoints while that member's enrollment is unconfirmed. This results in disclosure of secret authentication material to another member of the same organization or project.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/09/2026
The vulnerability described constitutes a critical information disclosure flaw within the Ops Manager platform, specifically affecting the access control mechanisms governing multi-factor authentication (MFA) enrollment processes. The core technical issue lies in an insecure direct object reference or broken access control mechanism where user-listing endpoints fail to adequately validate whether the requesting authenticated member has permission to view sensitive attributes of other users during their specific state of pending authenticator enrollment. When a new organization member initiates MFA setup, they are typically issued a secret seed, often presented as a QR code or alphanumeric string, which is required to configure an authenticator application such as Google Authenticator or Authy. This seed serves as the shared secret for generating time-based one-time passwords and must remain confidential until it is successfully bound to the user's account through confirmation steps.
In this scenario, the system exposes this pending enrollment seed in the response payload of endpoints designed to list users within an organization or project. Because the access control logic does not distinguish between confirmed members with full privileges and those who are merely authenticated but lack specific administrative rights over other users' security configurations, any member can query these endpoints and extract the secret material intended for another user. This represents a classic case of vertical privilege escalation in terms of data visibility, where lower-privileged actors gain access to high-sensitivity cryptographic material that should be restricted to system administrators or the individual owner during the transient enrollment window. The flaw exploits the assumption that listing users is a low-risk operation, failing to account for the sensitivity of fields like MFA seeds which are effectively passwords in their own right until they are rotated upon confirmation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe, as it allows an attacker within the same organization to compromise the authentication integrity of other members without needing to exploit additional vulnerabilities or perform social engineering attacks against them directly. By obtaining the pending authenticator seed, an adversary can configure their own device with the victim's secret and generate valid one-time passwords. This effectively bypasses the multi-factor authentication layer for that user, allowing the attacker to log in as the victim using only their known username and password combined with the stolen MFA token. This undermines the primary security benefit of implementing MFA, which is to add a second factor of identity verification independent of knowledge-based secrets like passwords. The window of opportunity exists from the moment enrollment begins until it is confirmed or expired, providing attackers with a potentially short but exploitable timeframe to intercept and utilize this data.
From a classification perspective, this vulnerability aligns closely with CWE-200: Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor, as well as CWE-639: Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key, given that the user ID or similar identifier is likely used in the request without sufficient server-side authorization checks. In terms of the MITRE ATT&CK framework, this behavior corresponds to T1078: Valid Accounts and potentially T1528: Steal Application Access Token if the seed leads to broader account takeover, though it primarily facilitates credential-based access via MFA bypass techniques similar to those described in T1621: Multi-Factor Authentication Interception. The attack vector is classified as Local or Adjacent depending on whether network segmentation restricts internal API calls, but generally falls under Network Exploitation if the endpoints are accessible over HTTP/HTTPS within the organization's infrastructure.
Mitigation strategies must focus on strict enforcement of access controls for sensitive user attributes and secure handling of cryptographic material during enrollment flows. The most effective remediation is to implement granular role-based access control (RBAC) that explicitly restricts access to MFA-related fields such as seeds, QR codes, or recovery codes to users with specific administrative roles like Organization Admin or Security Manager. For standard members, these fields should be omitted entirely from API responses regardless of the user's enrollment status. Additionally, developers should ensure that any endpoint returning user data performs a secondary authorization check specifically for sensitive attributes before serialization and transmission. Input validation alone is insufficient; server-side logic must verify that the requester has explicit permission to view the specific field being requested.
Furthermore, operational mitigations include implementing short expiration times for pending enrollment seeds so that even if intercepted, they become invalid quickly. Logging and monitoring should be enhanced to detect unusual patterns of user data retrieval, particularly requests involving MFA-related fields by non-administrative users. Security testing procedures must also be updated to include penetration tests specifically targeting the enumeration of sensitive attributes through listing endpoints, ensuring that future updates do not reintroduce similar access control lapses. By addressing both the immediate code flaw and strengthening the overall authorization model for user data retrieval, organizations can prevent unauthorized disclosure of authentication secrets and maintain the integrity of their multi-factor authentication infrastructure.