What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-52824: Kimai: Default APP_SECRET in Docker Image Enables Cookie Forgery and Account Takeover

• Severity: critical (CVSS 9.1 v4.0)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 1.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2026-09-15 · updated 2026-09-30
• Weakness: CWE-1188

Description

Kimai is an open-source time tracking application. Prior to 2.58.0, the official Docker image sets APP_SECRET to the public value change_this_to_something_unique in Dockerfile, and .docker/entrypoint.sh neither replaces nor rejects that value before Symfony uses it as kernel.secret. An unauthenticated attacker who reaches a deployment that did not override APP_SECRET, knows a username, correctly guesses the account ID associated with that username, and targets an account without active two-factor authentication can forge HMAC-protected authentication artifacts, including KIMAI_REMEMBER cookies and login links, to access the account without its password. The updated entrypoint generates and persists a random secret when no safe operator-provided value exists. This issue is fixed in version 2.58.0.

Affected products

• kimai: before 2.58.0

References

• https://github.com/kimai/kimai/commit/31a8f887a5cda517db7b4320a7ad997c87d08601
• https://github.com/kimai/kimai/pull/5952
• https://github.com/kimai/kimai/releases/tag/2.58.0
• https://github.com/kimai/kimai/security/advisories/GHSA-jr9p-4h4j-6c58
• https://www.kimai.org/en/security/ghsa-jr9p-4h4j-6c58

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