# CVE-2026-42176: Auth bypass in scoold

> Attackers can forge JWTs to modify admin settings, gaining persistent administrator access after a service restart.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.7 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 8 May 2026
- **Updated:** 8 May 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-7qfx-c234-xg4g

## What is CVE-2026-42176?

CVE-2026-42176 is a medium-severity authentication bypass vulnerability in Erudika scoold, published on 8 May 2026. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Scoold is a Q&A and a knowledge sharing platform for teams. Prior to version 1.67.0, Scoold allows the admins configuration value to be modified through /api/config/set/admins with a forged Bearer token that is accepted as an admin API token. Once that setting is changed, the target email address is written to the application configuration file. The change does not become active immediately in the current process, because the ADMINS set is loaded once at startup. After a Scoold restart, though, the selected user is recognized as an administrator and gains access to the admin panel. This issue gives an attacker a reliable persistence path: write their own email into scoold.admins, wait for a restart or trigger one operationally, and the account comes back as admin. This issue has been patched in version 1.67.0.

Weakness: CWE-306 (Missing Authentication for Critical Functionality)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-42176?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-42176?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-42176 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-42176 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-42176 exists.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-42176 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-42176 is a medium-severity authentication bypass vulnerability in Erudika scoold, published on 8 May 2026. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-42176 exists.

Affected product: Erudika scoold. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-42176/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-42176/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-42176
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-42176
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-42176

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-42176/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.