SecureDrop: API session token reuse against the Journalist Interface web UI
Impact
SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower submission system that media organizations can use to securely accept documents from, and communicate with anonymous sources. From 2.5.0 until 2.16.0, the Journalist Interface can accept an API session token against the web UI because its SessionInterface keeps a mutable session key prefix that changes with each request and persists across requests. API and web sessions were separated in Redis starting in version 2.5.0, but prefix corruption confuses those session namespaces. An attacker who already has access to the secret Journalist Interface…
Source excerpt · GitHub_MAffected packages
Affected products
Vendor version evidence. Product records are separate from automatic dependency matching.
freedomofpress · GitHub_M
securedrop
1 range
freedomofpress · GitHub_M
securedrop
Compare with this publisher’s ranges. This does not inspect your installation.
affected
>= 2.5.0, < 2.16.0
Other versions: unknown
Original source description
SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower submission system that media organizations can use to securely accept documents from, and communicate with anonymous sources. From 2.5.0 until 2.16.0, the Journalist Interface can accept an API session token against the web UI because its SessionInterface keeps a mutable session key prefix that changes with each request and persists across requests. API and web sessions were separated in Redis starting in version 2.5.0, but prefix corruption confuses those session namespaces. An attacker who already has access to the secret Journalist Interface onion address, the required authentication access and a recent nonexpired API session token can reuse that token against the web UI until its natural expiry, at most eight hours. The corrupted prefix can also prevent logout from deleting the correct Redis session, although normal expiry still applies. A compromised journalist can access encrypted submissions and perform broad actions on source submissions, but this issue does not expose plaintext submissions or affect the running system's availability. This issue is fixed in version 2.16.0.
Inside the record
Evidence available
Describes the evidence in this view, not whether the product is safe.
Original records
CVE-2026-50000View the latest unmodified CVE JSON from the official source. It may be newer than this imported page.
cve.new JSON →Underlying weaknesses
The source’s classification of what caused the vulnerability.
Contributing organizations · 2
Assigning organization
Additional data publisher
What changed
Follow changesLarge field values are marked as truncated previews. Original source snapshots remain retained.