EUVD-2026-53402
GHSA-53x4-p5j7-29q6
Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessObtain admin API key while privileged
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DeliveryAdmin account demoted/suspended/deleted
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ExploitReuse still-valid key over API
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ExecutionRead and modify platform data as admin
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ImpactRetain control until key revoked
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A07:2025 - Authentication Failures
ASVS 5.0
V7 - Session Management Session expiration enforcement
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| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires that the actor already possesses a valid administrative API key that was issued while they held admin rights, AND that the owning account has subsequently been demoted, marked inactive, suspended, or deleted, AND that the key has not yet been explicitly removed by another operator. The vulnerability window is bounded by these facts: it cannot be triggered by an outsider with no prior key, it only matters after an admin privilege/state change occurs, and it is closed the moment the stale key is manually revoked or the instance is upgraded to 2.0.2. Applies to Apache Answer through 2.0.1 regardless of platform. |
| Impact | The signals are mixed. The vendor CVSS of 9.1 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N, C:H/I:H/A:N) implies trivial unauthenticated network exploitation, but that scoring conflicts with the description: exploitation is only possible by an actor who already possesses a valid administrative API key that was legitimately issued while they were an admin. That is fundamentally a privilege-retention / insider-threat condition, not an anonymous internet attack - so PR:N overstates real-world exposure. Corroborating this, EPSS is very low (0.16%, 6th percentile), there is no CISA KEV listing, and no public exploit or POC is referenced. Real priority is therefore high for any deployment that has actually demoted, suspended, or offboarded an administrator (the impact if triggered is full confidentiality and integrity compromise of the platform), but low for environments that have never revoked an admin. Treat the CVSS as a worst-case ceiling and verify against your own admin-lifecycle history. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An organization demotes or fires an Apache Answer administrator and disables their account, assuming access is gone. The former admin, who still holds their previously issued API key, sends authenticated API requests over the network (AC:L, no user interaction) and continues reading and modifying platform content and settings with full admin rights until an operator manually deletes the key. No public POC is currently identified. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv2 – Aug 06, 2026
Privileged API access in Apache Answer through 2.0.1 persists after an administrator loses their authority: keys issued to an admin stay valid even after the account is demoted, marked inactive, suspended, or deleted, so a former administrator retains full API-level control until the keys are manually purged. This CWE-613 (Insufficient Session Expiration) flaw carries a vendor CVSS of 9.1 and is fixed in 2.0.2. There is no public exploit identified at time of analysis and EPSS is low (0.16%), consistent with an insider/privilege-retention issue rather than mass internet exploitation.
Earlier versions of this analysis (1)
Administrative API key invalidation failure in Apache Answer through version 2.0.1 permits former administrators to retain live access to administrative APIs after their accounts are demoted, suspended, or deleted. Because API keys are not bound to account status, a removed admin retains full administrative API privileges indefinitely until keys are explicitly and manually revoked. No public exploit has been identified at time of analysis, and exploitation requires prior administrative access plus possession of an existing API key, making this an insider-threat or offboarding-failure scenario rather than opportunistic network attack.
RemediationAI
Vendor-released patch: upgrade Apache Answer to version 2.0.2, which corrects the key/session validation so credentials are invalidated when the owning admin is demoted, deactivated, suspended, or deleted. Because upgrading does not retroactively guarantee stale keys are gone, immediately and explicitly revoke/rotate all administrative API keys - especially any that belonged to administrators who have been demoted or offboarded - since the advisory notes keys remained usable 'until the keys were explicitly removed.' If you cannot upgrade at once, the concrete compensating control is manual key lifecycle enforcement: audit every existing admin API key, delete keys tied to non-active or non-admin accounts, and add offboarding procedure steps to revoke keys whenever an admin's role changes (trade-off: this is process-dependent and error-prone, so it is a stopgap, not a fix). Advisory references: https://lists.apache.org/thread/2vkcj3bdvso6cywnklt2vtkc2m4o0b5c and https://seclists.org/oss-sec/2026/q3/449.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
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Technical ContextAI · show details
Apache Answer is an open-source, self-hosted question-and-answer (Q&A) community/knowledge-base platform (analogous to a StackOverflow-style forum) written in Go. It exposes a REST API that can be driven with long-lived administrative API keys/tokens instead of interactive sessions. The root cause is CWE-613, Insufficient Session Expiration: the application ties key creation to an admin identity but never re-validates that the owning account still holds administrative privileges (or even exists) at the time the key is used. Because authorization is checked only at issuance and not on each request, a state change to the underlying account - demotion, deactivation, suspension, or deletion - does not invalidate the already-minted credential.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Exploitation demands a valid admin-issued API key from a formerly privileged account, so PR:H; network-reachable API with no added complexity or interaction yields AV:N/AC:L/UI:N, with high C/I and no availability impact.
Primary rating from Vendor (apache).
CVSS VectorVendor: apache
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
Insufficient Session Expiration vulnerability in Apache Answer.
This issue affects Apache Answer: through 2.0.1.
Administrative API keys remained usable after the owning administrator was demoted or the account was marked inactive, suspended, or deleted, allowing continued access until the keys were explicitly removed. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 2.0.2, which fixes the issue.
Executive ViewAI
Apache Answer's privilege controls fail to expire API keys when administrators are demoted, deleted, or suspended, allowing former admins to retain complete API-level control indefinitely. This directly undermines access controls for organizations managing Answer up to version 2.0.1, creating an undetectable insider access vector that persists until keys are manually purged.
Apply vendor patch: Apache Answer 2.0.2. Pending update, manually audit and revoke all API keys associated with removed or demoted administrators; implement API key usage logging and alerting to detect anomalous activity from invalidated accounts.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
VulDB
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
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