Skip to main content
VulnerabilityPublished

CVE-2026-53708: IBM mcp-context-forge · Reliance on Reverse DNS Resolution for a Security-Critical Action

Affects IBM mcp-context-forgeSource CVE Database V5

0

Public exploit available · CVSS 6.6 Medium : upgrade to 1.0.3 as a priority.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score
6.6Medium
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
EPSS
0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 28% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
CISA SSVC
Exploitation
Proof of concept is public or traded
Automatable
Attackers cannot reliably automate steps 1–4 of the kill chain
Technical impact
Limited control over the software or limited information exposure

CISA SSVC assessment, 2026-09-14.

Patch
Available – fixed in 1.0.3
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N

Exploitation evidence

t = 0 is the CVE’s publication on cve.org

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 14 Sep 2026

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponised: evidence found.

    CISA SSVC: proof of concept public

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq Mirage: no evidence on record.

    No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

Timeline

  1. CVE ID reserved

    by GitHub, Inc.

    , 96 days before disclosure

  2. CVE published

    on cve.org

    , t = 0

  3. CISA SSVC assessment

    proof of concept public

    , 36 minutes after disclosure

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), CISA SSVC, the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

What to do

Upgrade mcp-context-forge and mcp-contextforge-gateway to 1.0.3.

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
IBMmcp-context-forgeAffected
  • <1.0.3
Fixed in
  • 1.0.3
IBMmcp-contextforge-gatewayAffected
  • <1.0.3
Fixed in
  • 1.0.3

Description

ContextForge is an AI gateway, registry, and proxy that provides centralized discovery, guardrails, and management for MCP, A2A, and REST or gRPC APIs. Prior to 1.0.3, the /admin/gateways/test call site in mcpgateway/admin.py calls validate_gateway_test_url() in mcpgateway/common/validators.py to resolve and reject private, loopback, link-local, and cloud-metadata addresses, but ResilientHttpClient later resolves the original hostname again without binding the validated address. When MCPGATEWAY_ADMIN_API_ENABLED is enabled, an attacker with a database-backed role containing explicit gateways.read permission can use DNS rebinding to return a public address during validation and a private or metadata address during connection, bypassing ssrf_blocked_networks and ssrf_dns_fail_closed because those controls apply only to the validation-time result. The endpoint's allow_admin_bypass=False setting means a bootstrap-only virtual platform-admin identity without a database role is not sufficient. Successful exploitation can reach internal services and cloud metadata, expose cloud credentials, access internal APIs, or probe internal network ports. This issue is fixed in version 1.0.3.

References

Community reviews

Loading reviews…