2026-10-13 · 2026-Q4
IBM MCP Context Forge Shipped a Known JWT Secret, Letting Anyone Mint Platform Admin Tokens (CVE-2026-53709)
Should this run hold this key at all?
- Fixable
- 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
CVE
Sources
Catalog
Cite this: AgentProv incident record: IBM MCP Context Forge Shipped a Known JWT Secret, Letting Anyone Mint Platform Admin Tokens (CVE-2026-53709) (2026-10-13). https://agentprov.com/incidents/2026-10-13-ibm-mcp-context-forge-shipped-a-known-jwt-secret-letting-anyone-mint-platform
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