Unauthorized leader promotion via watchdog key bypass
Published Sep 30, 2026 · Updated Sep 30, 2026
Authentication bypass in the watchdog component of Pgpool-II 3.5 through 4.7.2 allows remote attackers to promote a chosen node to leader. Watchdog promotion processing does not enforce the configured authentication key; the exact faulty check has not been publicly identified. Exploitation requires an enabled, reachable watchdog listener, and unauthorized leadership changes can alter cluster coordination and a configured virtual IP.
Summary
What happened
Authentication bypass in the watchdog component of Pgpool-II 3.5 through 4.7.2 allows remote attackers to promote a chosen node to leader. Watchdog promotion processing does not enforce the configured authentication key; the exact faulty check has not been publicly identified. Exploitation requires an enabled, reachable watchdog listener, and unauthorized leadership changes can alter cluster coordination and a configured virtual IP.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-92873
- Published
- Sep 30, 2026
- Updated
- Sep 30, 2026
- Vendor
- Pgpool Global Development Group
- Product
- Pgpool-II
- Classifications
- CWE-303
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Sep 30, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Sep 30, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=3.5.x <=4.2.x
- Affected versionversion=4.3.0 <=4.3.20
- Affected versionversion=4.4.0 <=4.4.17
- Affected versionversion=4.5.0 <=4.5.12
- Affected versionversion=4.6.0 <=4.6.7
- Affected versionversion=4.7.0 <=4.7.2
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Activity data is delayed. The latest report is Sep 28, 2026.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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