CVE-2022-26138 — Atlassian
CRITICALCVE-2022-26138 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Hard-coded Credentials vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-07-29) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
The Atlassian Questions For Confluence app for Confluence Server and Data Center creates a Confluence user account in the confluence-users group with the username disabledsystemuser…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-07-29. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-08-19.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2022-26138.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-26138 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
The Atlassian Questions For Confluence app for Confluence Server and Data Center creates a Confluence user account in the confluence-users group with the username disabledsystemuser and a hardcoded password. A remote, unauthenticated attacker with knowledge of the hardcoded password could exploit this to log into Confluence and access all content accessible to users in the confluence-users group. This user account is created when installing versions 2.7.34, 2.7.35, and 3.0.2 of the app.
Affected Products
questions for confluenceatlassianResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
The Atlassian Questions For Confluence app for Confluence Server and Dat…
The Atlassian Questions For Confluence app for Confluence Server and Dat…
The Atlassian Questions For Confluence app for Confluence Server and Dat…
The Atlassian Questions For Confluence app for Confluence Server and Dat…
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2022-26138 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Escape or sanitise the affected output on the server side rather than relying on client-side filtering, and add a Content-Security-Policy that blocks inline script execution so injected markup cannot run even if it reaches the page.
How to detect CVE-2022-26138
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2022-26138 -u https://target- Template
- Atlassian Questions For Confluence - Hardcoded Credentials
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive information and potential compromise of the Confluence instance.
- Remediation
- Update the Atlassian Questions For Confluence plugin to the latest version, which removes the hardcoded credentials.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (HTTPVoid), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-26138 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.