CVE-2026-88018

rclone serve s3: --auth-proxy without --auth-key authenticates nobody - full SigV4 signature bypass

CRITICAL
9.8
CVSS Score
Published: September 10, 2026 at 04:03 PM UTC
Updated: September 14, 2026 at 08:14 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorRclone

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Severity
CRITICAL9.8
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.5%
SSVC
PoC

Description

rclone is a command-line program to sync files and directories to and from different cloud storage providers. Prior to 1.75.1, rclone serve s3 configured with --auth-proxy but without --auth-key allows authPairMiddleware to register any client-chosen accessKeyID with an empty ws.s3Secret. gofakes3 then verifies the request’s SigV4 signature against that same empty secret, while Server.auth passes the access key identifier as both the user and authentication value to the proxy without an independent per-identity secret. An unauthenticated network attacker can therefore choose an arbitrary access key, sign with an empty secret, and reach whatever backend the auth-proxy script resolves for that identity. This issue is fixed in version 1.75.1.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 1.75.1
Affected range stops below 1.75.1, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

References (3)

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCPoCAutomatableTotal impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

9.8CRITICALGitHub_M
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-287CWE-306

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