CVE-2026-71863 PUBLISHED

SecureDrop: Onion Service client auth credentials copied to Monitor Server

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 07.08.2026 Published: 06.11.2026 Updated: 06.11.2026

SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower submission system that media organizations can use to securely accept documents from, and communicate with anonymous sources. From 2.13.0 until 2.16.1, running the securedrop-admin install Ansible playbook with journalist alerts disabled leaves the journalist alert key filename empty, causing the copy task to transfer every file in ~/.config/securedrop-admin/, including Onion Service client authentication credentials, to the Monitor Server. An attacker must first compromise the privileged Monitor Server to obtain the credentials, and the credentials remain an additional protection layer rather than sufficient access by themselves because the Journalist Interface still requires a username, passphrase, and MFA, while SSH access still requires SSH keys. This issue is fixed in version 2.16.1.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N
CVSS Score: 2.6

Product Status

Vendor freedomofpress
Product securedrop
Versions
  • Version >= 2.13.0, < 2.16.1 is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-201: Insertion of Sensitive Information Into Sent Data CWE