Keycloak account takeover PoC exposed
A public exploit for CVE-2026-18963 lets unauthenticated attackers hijack Keycloak accounts via the 'Forgot password' feature; patch to 26.7.2.
Sourcecert.ssi.gouv.fr — open the original
What to check
- Applies to
- The 8 CVEs named below. Whether you run an affected version is not assessed: check the versions the source lists.
- Exploitation
- A public exploit is recorded for CVE-2026-18963 (templated); no exploitation in the wild is recorded.
ANSSI/CERT-FR has published an advisory covering multiple vulnerabilities in Keycloak, the open-source identity and access management platform, affecting versions prior to 26.7.2. The vulnerabilities allow an attacker to bypass security policies and trigger other unspecified security issues. Most significantly, a public proof-of-concept exists for CVE-2026-18963, which allows an unauthenticated attacker who knows a victim's account identifier to take over that account, leveraging the 'Forgot password' account recovery flow.
Red Hat, which maintains Keycloak, recommends disabling the 'Forgot password' functionality across all authentication realms as a temporary mitigation for organizations unable to immediately patch; this feature is not enabled by default, which limits blast radius for unaffected deployments. Seven additional CVEs (CVE-2026-14613, CVE-2026-15571, CVE-2026-15945, CVE-2026-17048, CVE-2026-45292, CVE-2026-59888, CVE-2026-59889) are also referenced without detailed descriptions, indicating unspecified security issues bundled in the same release.
Given the availability of a public PoC for an unauthenticated account-takeover vulnerability in a widely deployed identity provider, defenders running Keycloak should prioritize upgrading to version 26.7.2 or later, or apply the documented workaround if patching is delayed. Organizations should also audit whether 'Forgot password' is enabled in their realms and monitor authentication logs for anomalous password-reset activity.
Mentioned in this report
Source reporting: https://www.cert.ssi.gouv.fr/avis/CERTFR-2026-AVI-1078
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