CVE-2026-33494 | Ory Oathkeeper has a path traversal authorization bypass

ORY Oathkeeper is an Identity & Access Proxy (IAP) and Access Control Decision API that authorizes HTTP requests based on sets of Access Rules. Versions prior to 26.2.0 are vulnerable to an authorization bypass via HTTP path traversal. An attacker can craft a URL containing path traversal sequences (e.g. `/public/../admin/secrets`) that resolves to a protected path after normalization, but is matched against a permissive rule because the raw, un-normalized path is used during rule evaluation. Version 26.2.0 contains a patch.

Published: 2026-03-26 Last update: 2026-04-07 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2026-33494 is rated Moderate Risk (43.4/100): CVSS Critical severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.03%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-33494

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-05-22 0.06% 0.03% -0.02%
2 2026-04-01 0.04% 0.06% +0.01%
3 2026-03-27 0.04%

Full EPSS history (3 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-33494

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
10.0 3.1 CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
3.9 5.8 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-33494

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2026-33494

GHSA-p224-6x5r-fjpm · Severity: critical · Ecosystem: go — Ory Oathkeeper has a path traversal authorization bypass

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-33494

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
ory oathkeeper < 26.2.0 cpe:2.3:a:ory:oathkeeper:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2026-33494

cvelogic Threat Intelligence