Auth bypass in Pocketbase

CVE-2026-44166

Pocketbase is an open source web backend written in go. Prior to 0.22.42 and 0.37.4, in some situations, if an attacker knows the email address of the victim they can create and link an unverified PocketBase user in advance by authenticating with one of the OAuth2 app providers, e.g. "A". When the victim gets invited or decides to sign up to your app on their own with provider "B" (PocketBase OAuth2 auth requires to be with a different provider because we don't allow multiple OAuth2 accounts from the same provider to be associated to a single PocketBase user), the user created previously by the attacker will be autolinked, upgraded to "verified" and its old password reset. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.22.42 and 0.37.4.

Vulnerability class: Broken Authentication

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.6 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:L.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (22.2th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 22nd percentile — 22.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-44166: held from 0.002 to 0.003.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.003 · change: +0.001

Affected products

  • Pocketbase — versions < 0.22.42, >= 0.30.0, < 0.37.4

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-44166?
CVE-2026-44166 is a high-severity vulnerability in Pocketbase, classified under Improper Authentication. CVSS score: 7.6/10. Published 2026-05-12.
How severe is CVE-2026-44166?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.6 out of 10.
Is CVE-2026-44166 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.