CVE-2026-48117
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 · uneditedDroneAware is a drone detection platform. The centralized DroneAware server backing droneaware.io was vulnerable to an account pre-hijacking attack in which an attacker could register an account using a victim's email address with an attacker-controlled password before the victim completed account activation. When the legitimate owner later activated the account, either by clicking the email verification link or by logging in via Google SSO, the attacker-set password became fully valid, enabling silent and persistent account takeover without any notification to the victim. The vulnerability was fixed server-side on 2025-05-20; no user action is required. Node binaries and self-hosted detection nodes are not affected. There are no workarounds; the fix was deployed server-side and no client-side mitigation is applicable.
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 · high confidencePre-hijacking vulnerability in DroneAware's account registration. An attacker could register an account with a victim's email address and set a password before the victim completed activation. When the victim activated via email link or Google SSO, the attacker-set password became valid, enabling persistent account takeover.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify DroneAware installation and versionLocate the DroneAware application and determine its installed version by checking the software manifest, about page, or version file. Compare this version to any known fixed releases published after 2025-05-20.Affected if The installed version is older than the server-side fix date of 2025-05-20 and has not received the security patch.
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Review account registration endpoint configurationInspect the account registration API or form configuration to determine whether it validates email uniqueness before creating a new user record. Check for any code or config that allows duplicate emails in pending or activation states.Affected if The registration flow accepts an email address that already exists in a pending or unactivated state without rejecting or overwriting the existing record.
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Examine pending registration handlingReview how the system processes registrations that are initiated but not yet activated. Look for logic that determines what happens when a new registration request arrives for an email that has an existing pending activation.Affected if The system creates a new password-capable account for an email that already has a pending activation rather than rejecting the duplicate or invalidating the previous pending request.
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Verify activation flow for pre-existing passwordsTest or inspect the activation flow (email link and Google SSO) to determine if a password set by an attacker during pre-registration becomes valid when the legitimate user completes activation.Affected if A password set by a different user during registration remains valid after the legitimate account owner completes their activation.
You are affected if the registration flow accepts an email that already has a pending activation without properly rejecting or overwriting it, allowing an attacker-set password to become valid when the victim activates their account.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 · scopedNo action required - vulnerability was already fixed server-side on 2025-05-20. For verification, confirm the registration flow properly validates email uniqueness and rejects/overwrites pending registrations for existing emails.
- No user action is required. The vulnerability was already fixed server-side on 2025-05-20.
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-48117 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-48117 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data