# CVE-2026-76298: Use of Hard-coded Cryptographic Key in the PostgreSQL Sidecar Service in Splunk Enterprise


- **Severity:** High 8.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 21 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 23 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-jj4w-fcgh-mh9q

## What is CVE-2026-76298?

CVE-2026-76298 is a high-severity vulnerability in Splunk Enterprise, published on 21 Oct 2026. 

### Official description

In Splunk Enterprise versions below 10.4.4 and 10.2.8, a user who does not hold the "admin" or "power" Splunk roles could derive the PostgreSQL sidecar database superuser password and run arbitrary operating system commands as the user account running Splunk Enterprise on search head cluster members.
The vulnerability is possible because the PostgreSQL sidecar service derives a privileged database password from the search head cluster identifier that appears in search job logs.
For more information see About configuring role-based user access (https://help.splunk.com/en/splunk-enterprise/administer/manage-users-and-security/10.2/manage-splunk-platform-users-and-roles/about-configuring-role-based-user-access), server.conf (https://help.splunk.com/en/splunk-enterprise/administer/admin-manual/10.2/configuration-file-reference/10.2.0-configuration-file-reference/server.conf), and Sidecar configuration settings (https://help.splunk.com/en/splunk-enterprise/administer/admin-manual/10.4/splunk-sidecars/sidecar-configuration-settings) in the Splunk documentation.

Weakness: CWE-321 (Use of Hard-coded Cryptographic Key)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-76298?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-76298?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-76298 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-76298 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-76298 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-76298 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-76298 is a high-severity vulnerability in Splunk Enterprise, published on 21 Oct 2026. 
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-76298 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Splunk Enterprise. 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-2026-76298/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-76298/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-76298
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-76298
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-76298

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-76298/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.