Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Affected CakePHP applications may accept forged legacy authentication cookies, allowing an unauthenticated person to impersonate users. The same weakness may also consume excessive CPU or memory. Exposure is conditional on using CookieAuthenticator with unencrypted, forgeable legacy tokens.
Executive priority
Emergency remediation is appropriate for confirmed exposed deployments because successful bypass could compromise authenticated accounts and protected data. Establish exposure immediately, upgrade affected systems, and monitor authentication behavior. Lower priority only after documented evidence excludes CookieAuthenticator legacy-token use.
Technical view
CVE-2026-77337 affects CakePHP Authentication before 2.11.2, versions 3.0.0–3.3.6, and 4.0.0–4.2.0. CookieAuthenticator can trust forgeable legacy tokens, causing authentication bypass and potential resource exhaustion. Fixed releases are 2.11.2, 3.3.7, and 4.2.1.
Likely exposure
Internet-facing applications are most concerning when they run an affected Authentication version and use CookieAuthenticator with legacy unencrypted tokens. Applications not using that authenticator or token format may not be vulnerable, but configuration and dependency evidence must confirm this.
Exploitation context
The supplied record does not identify active exploitation, and the CVE is not listed as KEV in the provided bundle. Network access, low complexity, no privileges, and no user interaction are scored, although an additional attack condition applies. Treat public-facing affected deployments as urgent without claiming exploitation is occurring.
Researcher notes
The weakness combines improper authentication with uncontrolled resource consumption, mapped to CWE-290 and CWE-770. The supplied CVSS 4.0 score is 9.1. Its vector scores availability impact as none despite the description mentioning CPU or memory exhaustion; confirm that operational impact through vendor guidance and controlled defensive testing.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade to Authentication 2.11.2, 3.3.7, 4.2.1, or a later compatible release.
- Prioritize public-facing systems using CookieAuthenticator and legacy tokens.
- Check the vendor advisory for configuration or token-transition requirements.
- Apply temporary access restrictions if upgrading cannot be completed promptly.
Validation and detection
- Identify Authentication versions from dependency manifests, lockfiles, and deployed artifacts.
- Confirm whether CookieAuthenticator is enabled in each affected application.
- Determine whether unencrypted legacy tokens remain accepted.
- Verify production resolves to a fixed version after deployment.
- Regression-test login, persistent-cookie, logout, and session invalidation behavior.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-290: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCWE-770: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCredential and access behavior lookup
The CVE wording references authentication or credential exposure, so valid-account and credential-access review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2026-77337 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Critical
- CVSS
- 9.1 (4.0)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
SSVC decision data
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N——GitHub_MVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 4.0 score
9.1CriticalVector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Vulnerability timeline
Timeline events are normalized from CVE metadata, CNA source timelines, ADP timelines, and KEV metadata when present.
- CVE reservedCVE Program
The CVE ID was reserved by the assigning CNA.
- CVE publishedCVE Program
The CVE record was published.
- CVE updatedCVE Program
The CVE record metadata indicates this as the latest update time.
ADP provider summaries
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://github.com/cakephp/authentication/security/advisories/GHSA-h7xh-9h2x-2m37CVE reference, GitHub_M · x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/cakephp/authentication/pull/806CVE reference, GitHub_M · x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/cakephp/authentication/pull/807CVE reference, GitHub_M · x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/cakephp/authentication/commit/c94d9a5380e7f4fdf38d338a9de2223a5b087159CVE reference, GitHub_M · x_refsource_MISC
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Authentication Bypass by Spoofing
Authentication Bypass by Spoofing represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.