Answer in brief
CVE-2026-16895 records a Medium severity (CVSS 5.1) vulnerability in Authentication Bypass in Metasploit JSON-RPC Service When DB Health Check Fails. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps Rapid7/Metasploit-framework (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
Analysis pending evidence review
HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.
CVSS is 5.1. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.
Analysis status
Analysis pending evidence review
Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.
The current feed maps Rapid7/Metasploit-framework (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
| Package | Affected range | Fixed version |
|---|---|---|
| Rapid7/Metasploit-frameworkgeneric | >=0 <6.5.2 | 6.5.2 |
Published upstream
Aug 27, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordSource modified
Aug 28, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordFirst seen by HOL
Aug 27, 2026
A logic vulnerability (fail-open condition) has been identified within the Metasploit Framework's JSON-RPC web service interface. When an exception occurs during the database health check (db.check) and the environment variable MSF_WS_JSON_RPC_API_TOKEN is not explicitly set, the application resets the internal state flag msf.auth_initialized to false. The ApiToken Warden authentication strategy misinterprets this false value as an indicator that authentication is not initialized or required, thereby granting unauthenticated local access to the JSON-RPC request dispatcher.
Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.