Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-53595 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-53595 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-53595?
- Critical severity, with a CVSS score of 9.4, published 20 July 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- freescout-help-desk FreeScout < 1.8.224.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-53595?
- No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
- How is CVE-2026-53595 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a network appliance.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-53595?
- Check whether anything you run is named in the advisory. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
An authentication bypass and account takeover vulnerability exists in FreeScout's `OpenController@userSetupSave` endpoint. The application identifies accounts using an `invite_hash` column which is set to an empty string after user activation. On MySQL/MariaDB backends, trailing space equality allows a URL-encoded space (`%20`) to match these empty strings, selecting the first activated user (often an admin or agent). Additionally, the `isInviteExpirationValid` check can be bypassed because the decryption helper returns raw input upon failure, allowing a plaintext numeric timestamp to satisfy the expiry logic. An attacker can use a crafted POST request to overwrite the target's credentials and automatically log in. This issue is fixed in version 1.8.224.
Affected products
- freescout-help-desk FreeScout < 1.8.224
Timeline
- 2026-06-10: advisory: GitHub Security Advisory published
- 2026-07-20: disclosed: CVE published to NVD