VulnerabilityPublished 16 Sep 2026

CVE-2026-86043: zalando skipper · Incorrect Authorization

Affects zalando skipperSource CVE Database V5

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Mentioned vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-50197

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High : upgrade to 0.27.37 soon.

Data as of 31 Oct 2026, 20:20 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 39% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 0.27.37

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: High
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 16 Sep 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 31 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade skipper and zalando/skipper to 0.27.37.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
zalandoskipper	Affected <0.27.37	Fixed in 0.27.37
GitHubzalando/skipper`pkg:github/zalando/skipper`Other threats	Affected <0.27.37	Fixed in 0.27.37

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

Upgrade Zalando Skipper to version 0.27.37 or later, where this issue is fixed. No other mitigation is required as the vendor has provided an official fix.

Description

Skipper is an HTTP router and reverse proxy for service composition. Prior to version 0.27.37, the opaAuthorizeRequestWithBody filter can authorize an oversized request after Skipper truncates the body presented to Open Policy Agent because the input.truncated_body signal is derived from Content-Length rather than the actual read result. In filters/openpolicyagent/openpolicyagent.go, ExtractHttpBodyOptionally truncates bodies at maxBodyBytes, while filters/openpolicyagent/internal/envoy/skipperadapter.go copies the request headers without adding a Content-Length value that reflects the truncation. For an HTTP/1.1 request using Transfer-Encoding: chunked or an HTTP/2 request without Content-Length, a body-inspecting policy that follows the prior mitigation and permits input.truncated_body equal to false can evaluate only the truncated prefix, allow the request, and then forward the full oversized body to the protected upstream. This residual issue is distinct from CVE-2026-50197. This issue is fixed in version 0.27.37.

Impact

An attacker can bypass authorization policies that inspect the request body by exploiting the mismatch between the truncated body used for policy evaluation and the actual full request body forwarded upstream. This can lead to unauthorized actions being performed on the protected upstream service. The vulnerability does not impact confidentiality or availability but has a high impact on integrity due to incorrect authorization.

Summary

The vulnerability in Zalando Skipper (CVE-2026-86043) arises because the opaAuthorizeRequestWithBody filter authorizes requests based on a truncated request body, but the Content-Length header does not reflect this truncation. Specifically, the input.truncated_body signal is derived from Content-Length rather than the actual read result. For HTTP/1.1 requests with Transfer-Encoding: chunked or HTTP/2 requests without Content-Length, a body-inspecting policy that relies on input.truncated_body being false may only evaluate the truncated prefix and allow the request, while the full oversized body is forwarded to the upstream service. This incorrect authorization is distinct from CVE-2026-50197 and is resolved in Skipper version 0.27.37.

CWE-863Incorrect Authorization (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #17OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action, but it does not correctly perform the check.
Architecture and Design
Divide the product into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Reduce the attack surface by carefully mapping roles with data and functionality. Use role-based access control (RBAC) to enforce the roles at the appropriate boundaries.
Architecture and Design
Ensure that access control checks are performed related to the business logic. These checks may be different than the access control checks that are applied to more generic resources such as files, connections, processes, memory, and database records.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V8.3.8 (opens in a new tab)
V13.4.2 (opens in a new tab)
V7.2.2 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 16 Sep 2026, 19:16 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-863

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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