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HTTP transports serve session requests without verifying the authenticated principal

High
maxisbey published GHSA-jpw9-pfvf-9f58 Jun 5, 2026

Package

pip mcp (pip)

Affected versions

<=1.27.1

Patched versions

1.27.2

Description

Summary

In affected versions, the SSE and Streamable HTTP server transports routed incoming requests to an existing session based only on the session identifier, without verifying that the request was authenticated as the same principal that created the session. Anyone who learned or guessed a session ID could send JSON-RPC messages on that session, regardless of which bearer token the request carried.

Am I affected?

Only if your server uses an HTTP transport (SSE, or Streamable HTTP in stateful mode) and authenticates requests. Servers on stdio, stateless Streamable HTTP, or with no authentication configured are not affected.

Details

Both transports look up the target session by its identifier alone — the session_id query parameter for SSE (mcp.server.sse.SseServerTransport) and the Mcp-Session-Id header for Streamable HTTP (mcp.server.streamable_http_manager.StreamableHTTPSessionManager). Once the lookup succeeded, the request was handled on that session without comparing its authentication context to the credentials presented when the session was created, so a request authenticated as a different OAuth client could inject messages into the session. On the SSE transport the response is delivered to the original client's event stream; on the Streamable HTTP transport it is returned on the injecting request, so the injecting client can also read the result. The SSE transport has been affected since the first release; the Streamable HTTP transport since version 1.8.0.

Impact

Servers using either HTTP transport together with the SDK's built-in bearer-token authentication are affected: the per-client isolation that authentication provides can be bypassed for any session whose ID is known. Session IDs are randomly generated UUIDs, so exploitation requires obtaining one out of band (logs, network observation). Servers that do not enable bearer-token authentication have no per-client isolation to bypass and are not addressed by this advisory, and stateless Streamable HTTP deployments do not maintain sessions and are unaffected.

Mitigation

Upgrade to version 1.27.2 or later, which records the authenticated principal that created each session — the OAuth client ID together with the token's issuer and subject when the token verifier supplies them — and answers requests presenting a different principal with the same 404 response as for an unknown session.

Deployments where many end users share a single OAuth client (hosted MCP clients, gateways) should ensure their token verifier populates AccessToken.subject (e.g. from the token's sub claim) so sessions are isolated per user rather than per client. Deployments using a custom authentication backend other than the built-in BearerAuthBackend should enforce an equivalent check themselves.

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
Low

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L

CVE ID

CVE-2026-52869

Weaknesses

Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key

The system's authorization functionality does not prevent one user from gaining access to another user's data or record by modifying the key value identifying the data. Learn more on MITRE.

Credits