Splunk Enterprise and Cloud Platform
CVE-2026-76338: Improper Authentication through REST API Distributed Search Token Requests in Splunk Enterprise
In Splunk Enterprise versions below 10.4.2, 10.2.6, 10.0.9, and 9.4.14, an unauthenticated user who has access to a trusted distributed search private key could forge an administrative session token, access all relevant data, affect system integrity, and disrupt service availability.
Published
Automatic summary from the vendor's CVE record. We haven't written a full analysis of this vulnerability yet.
Affected and fixed versions
| Product / branch | Fixed in |
|---|---|
| Splunk Enterprise 10.4 | 10.4.2 or later |
| Splunk Enterprise 10.2 | 10.2.6 or later |
| Splunk Enterprise 10.0 | 10.0.9 or later |
| Splunk Enterprise 9.4 | 9.4.14 or later |
Always confirm against the vendor advisory, which lists every fixed hotfix.
What it is
In Splunk Enterprise versions below 10.4.2, 10.2.6, 10.0.9, and 9.4.14, an unauthenticated user who has access to a trusted distributed search private key could forge an administrative session token, access all relevant data, affect system integrity, and disrupt service availability. The vulnerability is possible because the distributed search authentication token endpoint does not require a signed request to identify a configured search peer, allowing the request to fall back to shared local key material. For more information see About distributed search (https://help.splunk.com/en/splunk-enterprise/administer/distributed-search/10.4/overview-of-distributed-search/about-distributed-search) and authentication.conf (https://help.splunk.com/en/splunk-enterprise/administer/admin-manual/10.4/configuration-file-reference/10.4.2-configuration-file-reference/authentication.conf) in Splunk documentation.
Workarounds
Turn off legacy distributed search token fallback by setting strictPeerNameValidation = true in the authentication.conf configuration file if you do not use distributed search peers that omit peername. Restart Splunk Enterprise on every node in the distributed environment after applying the setting. For more information see [authentication.conf](https://help.splunk.com/en/splunk-enterprise/administer/admin-manual/10.4/configuration-file-reference/10.4.2-configuration-file-reference/authentication.conf) in the Splunk documentation.
Sources
KEV status, EPSS score and vendor data refreshed automatically, last on 13 Oct 2026.