OpenViking: Unauthenticated remote bot control via OpenAPI HTTP routes
Date: 2026-04
Affected: pip/openviking
Attack vector: auth-bypass
Category: vulnerability-disclosure
Severity: Critical
CVE: CVE-2026-40525
CWE: CWE-636
CVSS: 9.1 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N)

OpenViking prior to commit c7bb167 contains an authentication bypass vulnerability in the VikingBot OpenAPI HTTP route surface where the authentication check fails open when the api_key configuration value is unset or empty. Remote attackers with network access to the exposed service can invoke privileged bot-control functionality without providing a valid X-API-Key header, including submitting attacker-controlled prompts, creating or using bot sessions, and accessing downstream tools, integrations, secrets, or data accessible to the bot.


Mitigations:

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):