FreeScout is a free help desk and shared inbox built with PHP's Laravel framework. Prior to version 1.8.224, the public endpoint POST /user-setup/{hash}/{invite_sent_at} (OpenController@userSetupSave) selects the target account solely by its invite_hash column, then overwrites that account's email and password and logs in as it. No authentication, cookie, or prior session is required. After a user activates, FreeScout sets invite_hash to the empty string. On MySQL and MariaDB, VARCHAR equality ignores trailing spaces, so a single URL-encoded space (%20) matches the stored empty string and selects the lowest-id activated user. The expiry guard decrypts invite_sent_at with the target's password hash, but Helper::decrypt returns its raw input unchanged when decryption fails. A plaintext numeric value such as 9999999999 therefore passes the time-to-live check without any secret. The result is that an anonymous attacker sets the email and password of the lowest-id activated FreeScout account (a support agent, or an administrator if one was added by invitation) and authenticates as that account. Version 1.8.224 contains a fix.
CVE-2026-53595
This critical-severity CVE scores 9.4 under a secondary CVSS source (NVD's own analysis pending). EPSS exploit probability: 0.3%, top 78% of all CVEs by exploit prediction. GitHub Security Advisory data not yet ingested — confidence will rise once GHSA publishes (typical lag: hours to days for open-source ecosystem CVEs; never for infrastructure-only CVEs).
- High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
No vendor fix yet — apply a workaround or compensating control (WAF / firewall / segmentation) and watch for a patch.
- CVSS v3
- 9.4
- EG Score
- 9.4(medium)
- EG Risk
- 73(Attend)EG Risk 73/100SSVC: Attend
EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).
How it’s computedSeverity94% × 45%Exploitation40% × 40%Automatability100% × 15%Action: Remediate soon — notable exploitation risk. - EPSS
- 22.4%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
July 20, 2026
Last Modified
July 21, 2026
Advisory Details (1)
Auto-updated Jul 20, 2026Anonymous account takeover via /user-setup empty invite_hash on MySQL · Advisory · freescout-help-desk/freescout · GitHub
https://github.com/freescout-help-desk/freescout/security/advisories/GHSA-jqj5-r72v-v29gWeakness Classification(3)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 7× in last 7d / 7× in last 30d)
Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.
- 2026-07-23 03:19 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 23:29 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 14:08 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-21 15:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-20 22:42 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-20 20:28 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-20 20:27 UTCMITRE cvelistV5first tracked
Related CVEs(same CWE)
Same CWE
10 shownCWE-178 · CWE-287
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Dependency Blast Radius
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