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Improper AuthorizationWeakness · CWE-285

CVE-2026-11500

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-06-08
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
56/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
A vulnerability was identified in Weaviate up to 1.37.7. This vulnerability affects the function validateConfig of the file usecases/auth/authentication/apikey/client.go of the component Static API Key Handler. The manipulation of the argument StaticApiKey leads to authorization bypass. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. The complexity of an attack is rather high. It is stated that the exploitability is difficult. The exploit is publicly available and might be used. Upgrading to version 1.38.0-rc.0 is able to resolve this issue. The identifier of the patch is 40f2cc32279f0f8a51016c3c6870a2c0c808e6c0. You should upgrade the affected component.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-285

The application confirms who you are but does not properly check whether you are permitted to perform a given action, so authenticated users reach functions or data meant for others. Attackers test roles and object references to find the gap. Remediation is an authorization check on every request, evaluated against the acting user's actual permissions.

General guidance for the improper authorization class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
Low

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

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

1.38.0-rc.0 (or latest stable 1.38.x release)

  1. 1. Backup your current Weaviate configuration and data
  2. 2. Stop the Weaviate service
  3. 3. Update Weaviate to version 1.38.0-rc.0 or later stable release (e.g., 1.38.0)
  4. 4. Verify the Static API Key Handler configuration in your authentication settings
  5. 5. Restart the Weaviate service
  6. 6. Test that API key authentication works correctly with the new version
  7. 7. Confirm the authorization bypass is no longer present by validating that invalid/manipulated StaticApiKey values are properly rejected
Caveat 1.38.0-rc.0 is a release candidate; ensure thorough testing before production deployment; review release notes for any other changes between 1.37.7 and 1.38.x

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-11500 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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