CVE-2026-57148: praisonai-platform 0.1.4 still boots on the hardcoded JWT secret dev-secret-change-me (default-open production guard)

Should you act?

Critical and remotely reachable

No known exploitation yet, but it is network-reachable without credentials. This signal is computed from CISA KEV, EPSS and CVSS data; it is not an editorial verdict.

• Not in CISA KEV, but CISA’s SSVC assessment records a public proof-of-concept, so attack code exists.
• EPSS 0.6%, percentile 50: FIRST’s model estimates a 0.6% chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 50% of all scored CVEs (moderate). EPSS is a probability, not a verdict.
• Remotely reachable with no login and no user interaction. If the vulnerable service is exposed to the internet, prioritize it.
• Only applies if your dependency tree includes praisonai-platform (PyPI) <= 0.1.4, fixed in 0.1.6. Check your lockfile, including transitive dependencies.

What it is

PraisonAI is a multi-agent teams system. Prior to 0.1.6, praisonaiplatform/services/authservice.py falls back to the public dev-secret-change-me HS256 signing key when PLATFORMJWTSECRET is unset, while the startup and token-issuance guards are disabled because PLATFORMENV also defaults to dev. An unauthenticated attacker can sign a JWT containing an attacker-chosen sub value, and AuthService.verifytoken() accepts it as an authenticated identity, enabling user or workspace-owner impersonation when a target identifier is known. This vulnerability is fixed in praisonai-platform 0.1.6.

From the GitHub advisory

- Affected: praisonai-platform (PyPI)

- CWE: CWE-1188 (Insecure Default Initialization) + CWE-798 (Use of Hard-coded Credentials) -> CWE-287 (Improper Authentication)

Overview

GHSA-3qg8-5g3r-79v5 (Critical) reported that praisonai-platform's JWT signing secret defaulted to the hardcoded literal "dev-secret-change-me", and that the production guard meant to prevent this was default-open (it only fired when PLATFORMENV != "dev", but PLATFORMENV defaults to "dev"). That advisory declares the issue patched in >= 0.1.4. It is not. The shipped praisonai-platform==0.1.4 (and current main) still resolves the signing key to "dev-secret-change-me" in any deployment that does not explicitly set PLATFORMJWTSECRET, because the 0.1.4 change merely duplicated the same default-open guard into a second function instead of failing closed. An unauthenticated attacker reads the literal from the public source, forges a JWT with an arbitrary sub, and is authenticated as that user — including a workspace owner.

Impact

Weakness type: CWE-287, CWE-798, CWE-1188.

Product: praisonai-platform (PyPI) · Assigned by: GitHub_M · Published: 2026-09-15

Affected and fixed versions

Severity scores

• Attack vector: network (remotely reachable)
• Attack complexity: low
• Privileges required: none (no login)
• User interaction: none
• Scope: unchanged

CVSS measures how bad a flaw is if exploited, not how likely exploitation is. Read it next to the exploitation data below.

Exploitation and urgency

• CISA KEV: not listed (no confirmed in-the-wild exploitation known to CISA).
• CISA SSVC assessment: exploitation poc, automatable yes, technical impact total.
• FIRST EPSS (model of 2026-10-21): 0.64% probability of exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 50.

Timeline

• 2026-06-18 — GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-f38v-77qj-h4jq published (critical)
• 2026-09-15 — CVE record published by GitHub_M
• 2026-09-16 — CVE record last updated

Sources and references

Original sources first. Version and fix details should always be confirmed against the vendor or project advisory.

Vulnerability records

1. GitHub Advisory GHSA-f38v-77qj-h4jq github.com
2. CVE.org record CVE-2026-57148 cve.org
3. NVD entry CVE-2026-57148 nvd.nist.gov

Other references from the CVE record and advisory

1. github.com github.com
2. github.com github.com
3. github.com github.com
4. github.com github.com

Critical PyPI advisories · Today’s Security Digest