9.8Critical
CVE-2026-87929
MaxSite CMS through 109.6 ships with a hardcoded session encryption key in application/config/config.php that is never changed during installation, allowing unauthenticated attackers to forge administrator session cookies. Attackers can mint a malicious ci_session cookie with administrator privileges by computing an HMAC-SHA1 using the publicly known encryption key, bypassing authentication checks in is_login() and mso_check_allow() functions.
What this means for your business
- An attacker can use it remotely, over a network, without a login, and without anyone at your company clicking anything.
- FIRST's prediction model gives it a 0.3% chance of attack attempts being seen in the next 30 days, ranking above 21% of all known flaws.
What to do
- 1Ask your IT team or provider whether any of your systems use the affected product.
- 2If you do, follow the vendor's guidance. No patch reference has been published yet.
Not sure if your company is exposed?
Fastnexa’s certified penetration testers can check whether attackers could use this flaw, or others like it, against your websites, apps and network. The full test is free for our first 10 founding clients until 31 December 2026.
Scoring
- CVSS
- 9.8 (v3.1)
- Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H- CVSS v4
- 9.3
- Weakness
- CWE-321
- Assigned by
- disclosure@vulncheck.com
Dates
- Published
- 2026-09-09
- Last modified
- 2026-09-14
- Sources
- NVD
References
- https://github.com/EviL0rd/maxsite-cve4/blob/main/2026.09.08-maxsite-cms-hardcoded-session-key-auth-bypass.md
- https://github.com/maxsite/cms
- https://github.com/maxsite/cms/blob/2ca0a0c7d1d71106a25dbb0f2aedaaefbf12802c/application/config/config.php#L230-L254
- https://github.com/maxsite/cms/blob/2ca0a0c7d1d71106a25dbb0f2aedaaefbf12802c/application/maxsite/common/core/init.php#L70-L96
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/maxsite-cms-through-109.6-authentication-bypass-via-hardcoded-encryption-key