CVE-2026-44838 | RabbitMQ MQTT Topic Permission Authorization Bypass

RabbitMQ is a messaging and streaming broker. From 4.2.0 to before 4.2.4, RabbitMQ's MQTT plugin allows for topic-level authorization using regular expressions with variable substitution. Administrators can create patterns such as ^{client_id}-sensors$ to restrict user access to topics that include their client ID. However, the client_id is provided by the user in the MQTT CONNECT packet and is inserted into the regex pattern without escaping special regex characters. This flaw enables an authenticated MQTT user to inject regex operators to bypass authorization. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.4 and 4.3.0.

Published: 2026-05-27 Last update: 2026-06-04 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2026-44838 is rated Low Risk (25.3/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.04%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

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-2026-44838

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 2026-05-28 0.04%

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-44838

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.3 4.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:H/SI:H/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and stable.
Attack requirements (AT:P)
Additional preconditions must be present for exploitation.
Privileges required (PR:L)
Low privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:N)
No user interaction is required.
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:L)
Limited confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:L)
Limited integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:L)
Limited availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:H)
High confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:H)
High integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:N)
No availability impact on subsequent systems.
Exploit maturity (threat) (E:X)
Not defined: no reliable threat intelligence; scoring assumes the worst case (equivalent to Attacked).
Confidentiality requirement (CR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Integrity requirement (IR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Availability requirement (AR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Modified attack vector (MAV:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Vector (AV).
Modified attack complexity (MAC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Complexity (AC).
Modified attack requirements (MAT:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Requirements (AT).
Modified privileges required (MPR:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Privileges Required (PR).
Modified user interaction (MUI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base User Interaction (UI).
Modified vulnerable system confidentiality impact (MVC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VC metric.
Modified vulnerable system integrity impact (MVI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VI metric.
Modified vulnerable system availability impact (MVA:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VA metric.
Modified subsequent system confidentiality impact (MSC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SC metric.
Modified subsequent system integrity impact (MSI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SI metric.
Modified subsequent system availability impact (MSA:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SA metric.
Safety (supplemental) (S:X)
Not evaluated.
Automatable (supplemental) (AU:X)
Not evaluated.
Recovery (supplemental) (R:X)
Not evaluated.
Value density (supplemental) (V:X)
Not evaluated.
Vulnerability response effort (supplemental) (RE:X)
Not evaluated.
Provider urgency (supplemental) (U:X)
Not evaluated.
[email protected]
8.1 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
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.
2.8 5.2 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-44838

OS Trackers for CVE-2026-44838

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2026-44838 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (rabbitmq-server), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-44838
suse high CVE-2026-44838 severity important: SUSE including 10 source package names (erlang-rabbitmq-client, erlang-rabbitmq-client313, …), 56 product×package rows across 15 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, … (15 product lines)): Known Not Affected 56. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-44838/

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-44838

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
broadcom rabbitmq_server >= 4.2.0, < 4.2.4 cpe:2.3:a:broadcom:rabbitmq_server:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2026-44838

cvelogic Threat Intelligence