2026-10-13 · 2026-Q4
IBM MCP Context Forge Shipped a Known JWT Secret, Letting Anyone Mint Platform Admin Tokens (CVE-2026-53709)
PrimaryL1CredentialSecondaryL6Identity / Run
- Fixable:
- Yes, vendor patch
- Vendor response:
- Patched
- In the wild:
- No
- Actor:
- Attacker
Target
IBM MCP Context Forge, an MCP gateway and admin platform, before 1.0.2
Impact
`mcpgateway/config.py` and `.env.example` shipped a known `JWT_SECRET_KEY`. Token verification accepted HS256 tokens signed with it, and when the subject matched `PLATFORM_ADMIN_EMAIL` and `REQUIRE_USER_IN_DB` was false, a platform administrator was created on the fly, so a remote unauthenticated attacker could mint admin tokens without any database account. CVSS 9.8
Root Cause
A hard-coded default signing secret combined with just-in-time admin creation from token claims