Empty Password in Configuration File Affecting org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-config-server package, versions [,4.3.3)[5.0.0-M1,5.0.3)
Threat Intelligence
The probability is the direct output of the EPSS model, and conveys an overall sense of the threat of exploitation in the wild. The percentile measures the EPSS probability relative to all known EPSS scores. Note: This data is updated daily, relying on the latest available EPSS model version. Check out the EPSS documentation for more details.
Do your applications use this vulnerable package?
In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.
Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-JAVA-ORGSPRINGFRAMEWORKCLOUD-16439020
- published7 May 2026
- disclosed6 May 2026
- creditUnknown
Introduced: 6 May 2026
NewCVE-2026-40981 (opens in a new tab)How to fix?
Upgrade org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-config-server to version 4.3.3, 5.0.3 or higher.
Overview
org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-config-server is a library that provides an HTTP resource-based API for external configuration.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Empty Password in Configuration File through the GoogleSecretManagerV1AccessStrategy in the org.springframework.cloud.config.server.environment.secretmanager package. An attacker can load secrets from an arbitrary project by supplying an X-Project-ID header on a Config Client request, causing the server to query Secret Manager with that project ID and return GSM-backed property sources from the chosen project. When the server is deployed with Secret Manager credentials that can read multiple projects, this exposes secrets from projects the client should not be able to access and can leak application configuration and credentials.
Note: Fixes for earlier branches including 4.2.x, 4.1.x and 3.1.x are available under enterprise support.
Workarounds
- Set
spring.cloud.config.server.gcp-secret-manager.token-mandatory=trueand keep it enabled so the server performs theX-Config-Tokenpermission check before returning GSM-backed secrets, which prevents clients from loading secrets solely by steeringX-Project-ID.