CVE-2026-111443 Security feature bypass in Wheels
Attackers can bypass maintenance mode and rate limits by injecting test context headers or cookies, potentially causing resource exhaustion.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-111443?
CVE-2026-111443 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Wheels, published on 16 Oct 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Wheels 4.0.6 through 4.1.2 lets an unauthenticated client switch a request into a separate test application context, including in production, by supplying an X-Wheels-Test-Context header or WHEELS_TEST_CONTEXT cookie with any value, or including a test-runner path anywhere in the URL, even the query string. The alternate application uses the same configuration, environment, datasource and debug settings: this is not an authentication bypass or data/debug escalation. It can bypass maintenance mode enabled only at runtime, provide a second set of in-memory rate-limit counters, and trigger additional application-startup side effects and memory use. This is fixed in 4.2.0.
Weakness: CWE-348
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-111443?
How do I fix CVE-2026-111443?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-111443 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-111443 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-111443 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-jf33-wf86-q3mp, GHSA-xcj9-wm25-4cg4.