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Weakness · BaseCWE-306

CWE-306: Missing Authentication for Critical Function

Likelihood of exploit: HighKEV-linkedBase

As of 2026-10-05, CWE-306 (Missing Authentication for Critical Function) underlies 79 CVEs tracked by Threadlinqs, 17 of them in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and is cited by 227 tracked threats. MITRE rates its likelihood of exploit as High.

CVEs
79Mapped to CWE-306
CISA KEV
17Exploited in the wild
Critical
36CVSS v3 critical CVEs
Threats
227Tracked campaigns citing it
Likelihood
HighMITRE likelihood of exploit

Last updated:

What is CWE-306?

The product does not perform any authentication for functionality that requires a provable user identity or consumes a significant amount of resources.

CWE-306 is a base-level weakness in MITRE’s Common Weakness Enumeration, with a MITRE likelihood of exploit of High. Applicable platforms: Language: Not Language-Specific; Technology: Cloud Computing; Technology: ICS/OT.

Source: MITRE CWE (CWE-306 definition, reproduced verbatim). Counts and linkage below are Threadlinqs data.

Consequences

  • Access Control, Other — Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, Varies by Context. Exposing critical functionality essentially provides an attacker with the privilege level of that functionality. The consequences will depend on the associated functionality, but they can range from reading or modifying sensitive data, accessing administrative or other privileged functionality, or possibly even executing arbitrary code.

Source: MITRE CWE, common consequences.

How CWE-306 is exploited in the wild

Threadlinqs maps 79 CVEs to CWE-306, published between 2017-10-19 and 2026-10-03. 17 are listed in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, the authoritative record of exploitation in the wild, and 5 are tied to ransomware campaigns. By CVSS v3 severity the set splits into 36 critical, 25 high, 10 medium. The highest EPSS score in the set is 99.7% (CVE-2024-0012), the modelled probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. 227 tracked threats reference CWE-306 directly or through a CVE it covers; the most recent is “The First 24 Hours of a Ransomware Intrusion: Exfiltration, Credential Theft and Backup Targeting (Akira, REDBIKE, AGENDA)” (2026-10-03). Affected products concentrate in Oracle Corporation (9), Microsoft (5), Oracle (3), among 54 vendors in total.

Vulnerabilities (CVEs)

Showing 40 of 79 CVEs mapped to CWE-306, CISA KEV first, then by CVSS score.

  • CVE-2025-32433 — CISA KEV · CVSS 10 critical · EPSS 97.6% · published 2025-04-16
  • CVE-2024-0012 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 99.7% · published 2024-11-18
  • CVE-2024-47575 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 93.8% · published 2024-10-23
  • CVE-2025-3248 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 92.0% · published 2025-04-07
  • CVE-2026-20253 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 88.1% · published 2026-06-10
  • CVE-2025-61757 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 88.0% · published 2025-10-21
  • CVE-2026-39987 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 82.1% · published 2026-04-08
  • CVE-2026-24423 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 66.4% · published 2026-01-23
  • CVE-2026-41940 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 28.3% · published 2026-04-29
  • CVE-2026-35273 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 7.5% · published 2026-06-11
  • CVE-2026-33017 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 5.6% · published 2026-03-20
  • CVE-2026-72529 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 1.5% · published 2026-08-19
  • CVE-2026-20265 — CISA KEV · CVSS 9.8 critical
  • CVE-2026-1603 — CISA KEV · CVSS 8.6 high · EPSS 54.8% · published 2026-02-10
  • CVE-2017-10271 — CISA KEV · CVSS 7.5 high · EPSS 94.4% · published 2017-10-19
  • CVE-2023-27532 — CISA KEV · CVSS 7.5 high · EPSS 83.6% · published 2023-03-10
  • CVE-2026-56164 — CISA KEV · CVSS 5.3 medium · published 2026-07-14
  • CVE-2026-70352 — CVSS 10 critical · EPSS 0.9% · published 2026-09-03
  • CVE-2026-85889 — CVSS 10 critical · EPSS 0.4% · published 2026-09-17
  • CVE-2026-20223 — CVSS 10 critical · EPSS 0.0% · published 2026-05-20
  • CVE-2026-60366 — CVSS 10 critical · published 2026-07-22
  • CVE-2026-33032 — CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 9.3% · published 2026-03-30
  • CVE-2026-46817 — CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 0.6% · published 2026-05-28
  • CVE-2026-35278 — CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 0.6% · published 2026-06-16
  • CVE-2026-60367 — CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 0.5% · published 2026-07-22
  • CVE-2026-60372 — CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 0.5% · published 2026-07-22
  • CVE-2026-86543 — CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 0.4% · published 2026-09-07
  • CVE-2026-22679 — CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 0.2% · published 2026-04-07
  • CVE-2026-21992 — CVSS 9.8 critical · EPSS 0.0% · published 2026-03-20
  • CVE-2026-101065 — CVSS 9.8 critical · published 2026-09-27
  • CVE-2026-105105 — CVSS 9.8 critical · published 2026-10-03
  • CVE-2026-54103 — CVSS 9.8 critical · published 2026-06-18
  • CVE-2026-59705 — CVSS 9.8 critical · published 2026-07-07
  • CVE-2026-71319 — CVSS 9.6 critical · EPSS 0.3% · published 2026-08-05
  • CVE-2026-73843 — CVSS 9.6 critical · EPSS 0.2% · published 2026-08-13
  • CVE-2026-55450 — CVSS 9.3 critical · EPSS 0.3% · published 2026-06-23
  • CVE-2026-25848 — CVSS 9.1 critical · EPSS 0.4% · published 2026-02-09
  • CVE-2026-62327 — CVSS 9.1 critical · EPSS 0.3% · published 2026-07-13
  • CVE-2026-62325 — CVSS 9.1 critical · EPSS 0.3% · published 2026-07-28
  • CVE-2026-73842 — CVSS 9 critical · EPSS 0.1% · published 2026-08-13

Affected vendors

Threat activity

227 tracked threats cite CWE-306; the 25 most recent are listed.

Mitigations

  • Architecture and Design: Divide the software into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Identify which of these areas require a proven user identity, and use a centralized authentication capability. Identify all potential communication channels, or other means of interaction with the software, to ensure that all channels are appropriately protected, including those channels that are assumed to be accessible only by authorized parties. Developers sometimes perform authentication at the primary channel, but open up a secondary channel that is assumed to be private. For example, a login mechanism may be listening on one network port, but after successful authentication, it may open up a second port…
  • Architecture and Design: For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks entirely. Then, these modified values would be submitted to the server.
  • Architecture and Design: Where possible, avoid implementing custom, "grow-your-own" authentication routines and consider using authentication capabilities as provided by the surrounding framework, operating system, or environment. These capabilities may avoid common weaknesses that are unique to authentication; support automatic auditing and tracking; and make it easier to provide a clear separation between authentication tasks and authorization tasks. In environments such as the World Wide Web, the line between authentication and authorization is sometimes blurred. If custom authentication routines are required instead of those provided by the server, then these routines must be applied to every single page, since…
  • Architecture and Design / Libraries or Frameworks: Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid. For example, consider using libraries with authentication capabilities such as OpenSSL or the ESAPI Authenticator [REF-45].
  • Implementation, System Configuration, Operation: When storing data in the cloud (e.g., S3 buckets, Azure blobs, Google Cloud Storage, etc.), use the provider's controls to require strong authentication for users who should be allowed to access the data [REF-1297] [REF-1298] [REF-1302].

Source: MITRE CWE, potential mitigations.

Detection methods (MITRE CWE)

  • Manual Analysis: This weakness can be detected using tools and techniques that require manual (human) analysis, such as penetration testing, threat modeling, and interactive tools that allow the tester to record and modify an active session. Specifically, manual static analysis is useful for evaluating the correctness of custom authentication mechanisms.
  • Automated Static Analysis (effectiveness: Limited): Automated static analysis is useful for detecting commonly-used idioms for authentication. A tool may be able to analyze related configuration files, such as .htaccess in Apache web servers, or detect the usage of commonly-used authentication libraries. Generally, automated static analysis tools have difficulty detecting custom authentication schemes. In addition, the software's design may include some functionality that is accessible to any user and does not require an established identity; an…
  • Manual Static Analysis - Binary or Bytecode (effectiveness: SOAR Partial): According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: Cost effective for partial coverage: Binary / Bytecode disassembler - then use manual analysis for vulnerabilities & anomalies
  • Dynamic Analysis with Automated Results Interpretation (effectiveness: SOAR Partial): According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: Cost effective for partial coverage: Web Application Scanner Web Services Scanner Database Scanners
  • Dynamic Analysis with Manual Results Interpretation (effectiveness: SOAR Partial): According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: Cost effective for partial coverage: Host Application Interface Scanner Fuzz Tester Framework-based Fuzzer
  • Manual Static Analysis - Source Code (effectiveness: SOAR Partial): According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: Cost effective for partial coverage: Focused Manual Spotcheck - Focused manual analysis of source Manual Source Code Review (not inspections)
  • Automated Static Analysis - Source Code (effectiveness: SOAR Partial): According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: Cost effective for partial coverage: Source code Weakness Analyzer Context-configured Source Code Weakness Analyzer
  • Architecture or Design Review (effectiveness: High): According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: Highly cost effective: Inspection (IEEE 1028 standard) (can apply to requirements, design, source code, etc.) Formal Methods / Correct-By-Construction Cost effective for partial coverage: Attack Modeling

Source: MITRE CWE, detection methods. Threadlinqs detection rules for the threats above are Blue tier and higher.