CVE-2026-21696: pterodactyl wings · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Affects pterodactyl wingsSource CVE Database V5
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.3 High : upgrade to 1.12.0 soon.
Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC
- EPSS
- 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 45% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
- Patch
- Available – fixed in 1.12.0
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:HExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 19 Jan 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors
A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-26.
What to do
Upgrade wings and pterodactyl/wings to 1.12.0.
Affected software
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| pterodactylwings | Affected
| Fixed in
|
GitHubpterodactyl/wingspkg:github/pterodactyl/wingsOther threats | Affected
| Fixed in
|
Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.
AI-suggested
The primary mitigation is to upgrade all affected Wings installations to version 1.12.0 or later, where the issue is fixed. Until upgrades can be applied, organizations should implement monitoring of disk space usage on the panel's database server to detect abnormal growth early. Rate limiting or restricting activity log generation by low-privileged users can reduce the risk of exploitation. Applying network segmentation and access controls to limit which users can interact with Wings can also help. Regularly backing up the database and logs ensures recovery options in case of disk exhaustion. Administrators should audit user permissions to minimize the number of users capable of generating excessive activity logs. Finally, reviewing and tuning cron job frequency may reduce the impact of repeated processing cycles.
Description
CVE-2026-21696 is a high-severity vulnerability in Pterodactyl Wings versions 1.7.0 up to but not including 1.12.0. It arises from Wings not respecting SQLite's maximum parameter limit when deleting activity log entries, causing deletion queries to fail and entries to accumulate indefinitely. This leads to repeated reprocessing and uploading of the same activity logs, which grows over time and can exhaust the disk space of the panel's database server. The vulnerability can be exploited by a low-privileged user without authentication or user interaction. The issue is fixed in version 1.12.
References
- github.com/pterodactyl/wings/security/advisories/GHSA-2497-gp99-2m74 (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/pterodactyl/wings/blob/9ffbcdcdb1163da823cf9959b9602df9f7dcb54a/internal/cron/activity_cron.go (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/pterodactyl/wings/blob/9ffbcdcdb1163da823cf9959b9602df9f7dcb54a/internal/cron/sftp_cron.go (opens in a new tab)