CVE-2026-44327

free5GC's NEF mounts the nnef-oam route group without inbound OAuth2/bearer-token authorization. A network attacker who can reach NEF on the SBI can hit the OAM route with no Authorization header at all and the handler returns 200 OK. The current OAM handler is a stub that returns null, but the structural defect is route-group-scoped: the entire OAM route group has no inbound auth middleware, so every future OAM operation added to this group inherits the missing auth boundary by default. Same root cause as the NEF traffic-influence and PFD-management findings.

Details

Validated against the NEF container in the official Docker compose lab.

• Source repo tag: v4.2.1
• Running Docker image: free5gc/nef:v4.2.0
• Runtime NEF commit: 5ce35eab
• Docker validation date: 2026-03-11

NEF advertises OAuth2 setting receive from NRF: true, yet the OAM route group is mounted without any inbound auth middleware and answers unauthenticated GETs with 200 OK.

Code evidence (paths in free5gc/nef):

• OAM route group mounted without auth middleware: NFs/nef/internal/sbi/server.go:60
• OAM route exposed at /: NFs/nef/internal/sbi/api_oam.go:9
• OAM processor returns 200 OK directly: NFs/nef/internal/sbi/processor/oam.go:9
• NEF context only exposes outbound token acquisition (GetTokenCtx); there is no inbound authorization path: NFs/nef/internal/context/nef_context.go:153

PoC

Reproduced against the running NEF at http://10.100.200.19:8000 with no Authorization header:

curl -i http://10.100.200.19:8000/nnef-oam/v1/

Observed output:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
null

NEF container logs (docker logs nef) show the request being served while OAuth is enabled:

[INFO][NEF][GIN] | 200 | GET | /nnef-oam/v1/

Missing inbound authentication (CWE-306) and authorization (CWE-862) on the NEF OAM SBI route group. Severity is scored against the OAM route group's intended capability surface (Operations / Administration / Maintenance), NOT against the current stub handler. The current handler is a stub that returns null, but the defect is route-group-scoped: there is no auth middleware on the group at all, so every future OAM operation added behind this group inherits the missing inbound auth boundary by default.

Any party that can reach NEF on the SBI can:

• Probe and enumerate the OAM route surface anonymously today.
• Hit any future OAM-group endpoint (read, modify, restart-style operations) anonymously, because the auth boundary does not exist for this group.

Operators who assume OAuth2 setting receive from NRF: true enforces inbound auth on NEF are wrong for this route group.

Affected: free5gc v4.2.1.

Upstream issue: https://github.com/free5gc/free5gc/issues/861
Upstream fix: https://github.com/free5gc/nef/pull/23

A critical operation is accessible without requiring any authentication. Typical impact: any user can invoke the privileged function.

CVE-2026-44327 has a CVSS score of 10.0 (Critical). The vector is network-reachable, no privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. No fixed version is listed yet, so configuration controls and monitoring matter more in the interim.

Kodem intelligence

1. What is CVE-2026-44327? CVE-2026-44327 is a critical-severity missing authentication for critical function vulnerability in github.com/free5gc/nef (go), affecting versions <= 1.2.3. No fixed version is listed yet. A critical operation is accessible without requiring any authentication.
2. How severe is CVE-2026-44327? CVE-2026-44327 has a CVSS score of 10.0 (Critical). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
3. Which versions of github.com/free5gc/nef are affected by CVE-2026-44327? github.com/free5gc/nef (go) versions <= 1.2.3 is affected.
4. Is there a fix for CVE-2026-44327? No fixed version is listed for CVE-2026-44327 yet. Monitor the advisory for updates and apply mitigations in the interim.
5. Is CVE-2026-44327 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2026-44327 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
6. What actually determines whether CVE-2026-44327 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
7. How do I fix CVE-2026-44327? No fixed version is listed yet. In the interim: Keep the dependency up to date. Add authentication gating to all sensitive endpoints.