# CVE-2026-10520 — Ivanti Sentry Unauthenticated OS Command Injection (Root RCE), added to CISA KEV

> CVE-2026-10520 is a CVSS 10.0 OS command injection flaw (CWE-78) in Ivanti Sentry that lets a remote, unauthenticated attacker reach root-level remote code execution via the pre-auth endpoint /mics/api/v2/sentry/mics-config/handleMessage. CISA added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2026-06-11 with a federal remediation deadline of 2026-06-14, and the Shadowserver Foundation observed mass exploitation within a day of the public watchTowr PoC.

- **Published:** 2026-06-14T00:00:00Z
- **Last reviewed:** 2026-06-14T00:00:00Z
- **Canonical:** https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-0793
- **ID:** TL-2026-0793
- **Severity:** CRITICAL (CVSS 10)
- **Category:** VULNERABILITY
- **Status:** ACTIVE
- **Detections:** 9 · **IOCs:** 17 (full data via the Threadlinqs MCP server — Purple tier)
- **CVEs:** CVE-2026-10520, CVE-2026-10523

## Description

Ivanti Sentry (formerly MobileIron Sentry) is an enterprise mobile gateway that brokers authenticated, policy-controlled access between mobile devices and back-end resources such as Exchange, SharePoint and corporate web services, typically deployed at the network perimeter on port 8443. CVE-2026-10520 is a pre-authentication OS command injection vulnerability (CWE-78) in the Sentry web application that allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary operating-system commands as root, the privilege under which the Sentry service process runs.

The defect lives in the ConfigServiceController class, which exposes the endpoint /mics/api/v2/sentry/mics-config/handleMessage via an @PostMapping("/handleMessage") handler. The controller accepts an attacker-controlled `message` parameter and forwards it to ConfigService.handleMessage() with no authentication check and no input validation. ConfigServiceHandler then tokenizes the message string with a StringTokenizer into `command`, `module`, `xpath` and `value` components and routes on the command type. When the command is EXECUTE, ConfigRequestProcessor.handleExecute(xpath, value) is reached, which ultimately calls CommonUtilities.executeNativeCommand() — running the attacker-supplied content of the XML <reqandres> field as a native shell command. A single POST such as `message=execute system /configuration/system/commandexec <commandexec><index>1</index><reqandres>uname -a</reqandres></commandexec>` returns command output in the JSON `data` field, demonstrating unauthenticated root code execution.

Ivanti disclosed CVE-2026-10520 alongside CVE-2026-10523 (an authentication-bypass weakness, CWE-288, CVSS 9.9, allowing creation of arbitrary administrative accounts) on 2026-06-09 and shipped fixes in R10.5.2, R10.6.2 and R10.7.1. watchTowr Labs published full technical analysis plus a public proof-of-concept and detection script on 2026-06-10, and Rapid7 released unauthenticated vulnerability checks the same week. Within roughly a day, the Shadowserver Foundation reported a large volume of exploitation attempts replaying the public PoC; in its own scans Shadowserver found 19 vulnerable instances with at least 2 already backdoored and assessed that the remainder were likely compromised as well. CISA added the CVE to its KEV catalog on 2026-06-11 with a remediation due date of 2026-06-14. The vendor patch removed user control of the `message` parameter (replacing it with a hardcoded command string) and added Apache regex-based rules that force unauthenticated requests to the endpoint through login, so patched instances now answer with a 302 redirect rather than executing commands. Because Sentry sits at the perimeter and processes pre-auth traffic, successful exploitation gives an attacker a root foothold on a trusted device-management chokepoint, enabling credential theft, configuration tampering and lateral movement into the mobile and email infrastructure it fronts.

## MITRE ATT&CK

- T1595 Active Scanning
- T1592 Gather Victim Host Information
- T1588 Obtain Capabilities
- T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application
- T1133 External Remote Services
- T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter
- T1106 Native API
- T1136 Create Account
- T1505 Server Software Component
- T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
- T1078 Valid Accounts
- T1685 Disable or Modify Tools
- T1555 Credentials from Password Stores
- T1552 Unsecured Credentials
- T1082 System Information Discovery
- T1550 Use Alternate Authentication Material
- T1071 Application Layer Protocol

## Sources

- [CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog](https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/06/11/cisa-adds-one-known-exploited-vulnerability-catalog)
- [CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog — CVE-2026-10520](https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2026-10520)
- [ETR: CVE-2026-10520, CVE-2026-10523 - Multiple critical vulnerabilities affecting Ivanti Sentry (Rapid7)](https://www.rapid7.com/blog/post/etr-cve-2026-10520-cve-2026-10523-multiple-critical-vulnerabilities-affecting-ivanti-sentry/)
- [More Evidence That Words Don't Mean What We Thought They Meant — Ivanti Sentry Pre-Auth OS Command Injection CVE-2026-10520 (watchTowr Labs)](https://labs.watchtowr.com/more-evidence-that-words-dont-mean-what-we-thought-they-meant-ivanti-sentry-pre-auth-os-command-injection-cve-2026-10520/)
- [watchTowr-vs-Ivanti-Sentry-RCE-CVE-2026-10520-CVE-2026-10523 (PoC / detection script)](https://github.com/watchtowrlabs/watchTowr-vs-Ivanti-Sentry-RCE-CVE-2026-10520-CVE-2026-10523)
- [Ivanti Security Advisory — Ivanti Sentry CVE-2026-10520 / CVE-2026-10523](https://hub.ivanti.com/s/article/Security-Advisory-Ivanti-Sentry-CVE-2026-10520-CVE-2026-10523?language=en_US)
- [NVD — CVE-2026-10520](https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cveId=CVE-2026-10520)
- [Critical Ivanti Sentry flaw allows root-level remote code execution (CVE-2026-10520) — Help Net Security](https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2026/06/10/ivanti-sentry-cve-2026-10520-cve-2026-10523/)
- [Ivanti Sentry's CVE-2026-10520 Enables Root RCE (SOCRadar)](https://socradar.io/blog/ivanti-sentrys-cve-2026-10520-rce/)
- [Ivanti Command Injection Flaw Actively Exploited After PoC Release (Cyberpress)](https://cyberpress.org/ivanti-command-injection-flaw/)
- [CVE-2026-10520: Ivanti Sentry Unauthenticated OS Command Injection — How to Find Exposed Instances (HelloRecon)](https://hellorecon.com/blog/cve-2026-10520)

## Full data

Detection queries (Splunk SPL / Microsoft KQL / Sigma) and IOC values require the Threadlinqs MCP server (Purple tier): https://intel.threadlinqs.com/mcp

Canonical: https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-0793