CVE-2026-82266 — CVSS 9.8 CRITICAL Severity | NVD Vulnerability Record

Executive Summary

Redpanda versions up to 26.2.2 expose the Admin API on 0.0.0.0:9644 without authentication, granting unauthenticated callers full super‑user privileges. Enterprises that run Redpanda for streaming, event‑driven architectures, or data pipelines are at immediate risk of broker account takeover, configuration sabotage, and partition replication failure. Executive leadership must approve immediate network segmentation or patch deployment within the next 24 hours to prevent unauthorized cluster manipulation.

Verified Facts

• Redpanda through version 26.2.2 binds the Admin API to 0.0.0.0:9644 — NVD article.
• The configuration flag admin_api_require_auth defaults to false, treating unauthenticated requests as superusers — NVD article.
• Unauthenticated access enables creation/deletion of broker accounts, modification of cluster configuration, and disruption of partition replication — NVD article.
• CVSS base score is 9.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) — NVD article.
• The vulnerability is classified under CWE‑306 (Missing Authentication) — NVD article.

Threat Classification

Unauthenticated Remote Configuration Manipulation (HIGH CONFIDENCE); sectors — financial services, telecommunications, SaaS platforms, and any organization deploying Redpanda for real‑time data streams (MEDIUM CONFIDENCE); global Internet‑exposed deployments (HIGH CONFIDENCE); exploitation status — no public evidence of active exploitation, only proof‑of‑concept feasibility (MEDIUM CONFIDENCE); attacker motivation — disruption of data pipelines or illicit control of streaming workloads (MEDIUM CONFIDENCE).

Threat Severity Assessment

• Exploitability: network‑reachable, no authentication required (HIGH CONFIDENCE).
• Impact scope: full super‑user control over broker accounts and cluster state (HIGH CONFIDENCE).
• Prevalence: Redpanda is widely adopted for low‑latency streaming (MEDIUM CONFIDENCE).
• CVSS rating of 9.8 confirms critical severity (HIGH CONFIDENCE).

Business Impact

Unauthorized deletion of broker accounts can halt message ingestion, causing production‑line downtime estimated at $10 K–$100 K per hour for high‑throughput services. Modification of replication settings may lead to data loss, triggering GDPR breach notifications with fines up to €20 M or 4 % of global turnover. NIS2‑covered operators face mandatory incident reporting within 24 hours, exposing additional compliance costs. Public disclosure of a compromised streaming pipeline erodes customer trust and can precipitate churn of up to 5 % in subscription‑based models.

Technical Analysis

• Attack vector: unauthenticated TCP connection to 0.0.0.0:9644 (network‑level).
• Exploitation chain: connect → send Admin API JSON payload → server processes request as superuser → create/delete broker accounts or alter cluster.yaml settings.
• Affected component: Redpanda Admin HTTP API listener.
• Vulnerable versions: Redpanda ≤ 26.2.2.
• Root cause: default configuration disables authentication (CWE‑306).
• CVSS vector: AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

CVE Analysis

• CVE‑2026‑82266 — Redpanda ≤ 26.2.2 — CWE‑306 Missing Authentication — Network (Remote) — No authentication required — Patch available in Redpanda 26.2.3 (admin_api_require_auth defaults to true).

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

• Privilege Escalation → T1068: Exploitation for Privilege Escalation — unauthenticated Admin API calls are processed with super‑user rights.
• Impact → T1485: Data Destruction — deletion of broker accounts can erase queued messages.

IOC Intelligence

No public IOCs confirmed at time of publication.

Behavioral IOC categories for rule creation:

• Inbound TCP connections to destination port 9644 on Redpanda hosts.
• HTTP POST requests to /admin/* endpoints without an Authorization header.
• JSON payloads containing create_broker, delete_broker, or update_cluster_config actions.
• Rapid succession (<5 seconds) of distinct admin API calls from the same source IP.

Detection Engineering Guidance

• Collect Redpanda server logs (JSON‑formatted API request logs) and filter for missing Authorization fields on port 9644.
• Enable network flow logs (e.g., Zeek, Azure NSG) to flag inbound connections to TCP 9644 from non‑internal IP ranges.
• Correlate firewall deny logs with subsequent successful API responses to identify bypass attempts.
• In SIEM, create a rule: when dest_port=9644 AND http_method=POST AND auth_header=NULL THEN generate a high‑severity alert.

Sigma Rules

title: Redpanda Admin API Access Without Authentication
id: 3f9c2e1a-7b4d-4a6f-9c2e-5d8f6a1b9c3d
status: stable
description: Detects unauthenticated HTTP POST requests to Redpanda Admin API (port 9644) which grant super‑user privileges.
author: CYBERDUDEBIVASH Sentinel APEX
logsource:
    product: redpanda
    service: admin_api
detection:
    selection:
        dest_port: 9644
        http_method: POST
        Authorization: null
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Internal health‑check scripts that deliberately omit auth (must be whitelisted)
level: high
tags:
    - attack.t1068

Threat Hunting Queries

• Hypothesis: Unauthenticated admin API calls are occurring — Source: Redpanda logs where dest_port=9644 AND auth_header=NULL.
• Hypothesis: External IPs are reaching Redpanda admin port — Source: Zeek conn.log where dest_port=9644 AND src_ip !in internal_subnet.
• Hypothesis: Rapid broker‑account modifications indicate exploitation — Source: Redpanda logs where action=create_broker OR action=delete_broker AND timestamp diff < 5s.
• Hypothesis: Configuration changes without prior change‑management tickets — Source: Redpanda audit logs where field=cluster_config AND user=anonymous.
• Hypothesis: Network IDS alerts for HTTP POST to /admin/* on port 9644 — Source: Suricata/Eve JSON where http.uri contains "/admin" AND dest_port=9644.

SOC Analyst Playbook

• P0 – Within 1 hour: Block inbound traffic to TCP 9644 on all Redpanda hosts via firewall ACLs.
• P0 – Within 1 hour: Verify that admin_api_require_auth is set to true on each instance; if not, apply the configuration change.
• P1 – 1–4 hours: Pull Redpanda admin API logs for the past 24 hours; isolate any entries lacking Authorization headers.
• P1 – 1–4 hours: Quarantine affected hosts and restart Redpanda services with the patched version (≥ 26.2.3).
• P2 – Same day: Conduct a configuration audit to ensure no rogue broker accounts remain; restore any deleted accounts from backup.

Executive Decision Matrix

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