CVE-2026-27478
CRITICALUnity Catalog has a JWT Issuer Validation Bypass Allows Complete User Impersonation
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
Blast Radius
io.unitycatalog:unitycatalog-serverReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Unity Catalog is an open, multi-modal Catalog for data and AI. In 0.4.0 and earlier, a critical authentication bypass vulnerability exists in the Unity Catalog token exchange endpoint (/api/1.0/unity-control/auth/tokens). The endpoint extracts the issuer (iss) claim from incoming JWTs and uses it to dynamically fetch the JWKS endpoint for signature validation without validating that the issuer is a trusted identity provider.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | io.unitycatalog:unitycatalog-server | all versions | 0.4.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for io.unitycatalog:unitycatalog-server. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update io.unitycatalog:unitycatalog-server to 0.4.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-27478 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-27478 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2026-27478. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-27478 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-27478 across Maven dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.