Apache Tomcat 11.0.26 Fixes 12 Security Flaws Enabling WebSocket Bypass and DoS Attacks
Apache Tomcat 11.0.26 patches 12 flaws, including a WebSocket access-control bypass and several DoS bugs.
Cross-Application Authentication Bypass in Apache Tomcat
This is an improper authentication vulnerability in Apache Tomcat. It occurs when Jakarta Authentication is configured with SimpleAuthConfigProvider as the default and multiple web applications use that provider; the security realm from the first application to authenticate a request is incorrectly applied to all subsequent applications. This allows an attacker to gain unauthorized access to a different web application's resources by triggering authentication in the intended application first. The flaw affects multiple supported and end-of-life Tomcat versions. There is no known public proof-of-concept or in-the-wild exploitation at this time.
What to do: Upgrade Apache Tomcat to version 11.0.26, 10.1.60, or 9.0.122, depending on your current major version line. If you cannot upgrade immediately, ensure your web applications do not rely on the SimpleAuthConfigProvider or evaluate alternative authentication configurations. Review your Jakarta Authentication setup to confirm that the intended security realm is correctly applied to each application.
| Product | Affected |
|---|---|
| Apache Tomcat | from 11.0.0-M1 through 11.0.25 |
| Apache Tomcat | from 10.1.0-M1 through 10.1.59 |
| Apache Tomcat | from 9.0.0.M4 through 9.0.121 |
| Apache Tomcat | from 8.5.0 through 8.5.100 (EOL) |
Order-of-magnitude estimate by the model from install counts, market share and public scan data it knows; verify before quoting.
Improper Authentication vulnerability in Apache Tomcat. When Jakarta Authentication was configured with SimpleAuthConfigProvider as the default provider and multiple web application used that provider, the realm for the first web application to authenticate a request would be used for all web applications. This issue affects Apache Tomcat: from 11.0.0-M1 through 11.0.25, from 10.1.0-M1 through 10.1.59, from 9.0.0.M4 through 9.0.121. The following versions were EOL at the time the CVE was created but are known to be affected: from 8.5.0 through 8.5.100. Other unsupported versions may also be affected. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 11.0.26, 10.1.60, 9.0.122, which fixes the issue.
Apache Tomcat 11.0.26 patches 12 flaws, including a WebSocket access-control bypass and several DoS bugs.
Apache Tomcat 11.0.26 patches 12 flaws, including WebSocket smuggling and an HTTP/2 header mix-up.
Low-severity Tomcat CVE-2026-75973 can mix authentication across apps using Jakarta Authentication.
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