CVE-2026-24044 CRITICAL

CVE-2026-24044: ESS Community Helm Chart has a weak server key generation method

Vendor Element-Hq
Product ess-helm
Weakness CWE-336
Published February 12, 2026
Last update February 12, 2026

CVSS base score

9.2/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity High
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Element Server Suite Community Edition (ESS Community) deploys a Matrix stack using the provided Helm charts and Kubernetes distribution. The ESS Community Helm Chart secrets initialization hook (using matrix-tools container before 0.5.7) is using an insecure Matrix server key generation method, allowing network attackers to potentially recreate the same key pair, allowing them to impersonate the victim server. The secret is generated by the secrets initialization hook, in the ESS Community Helm Chart values, if both initSecrets.enabled is not set to false and synapse.signingKey is not defined. Given a server key in Matrix authenticates both requests originating from and events constructed on a given server, this potentially impacts confidentiality, integrity and availability of rooms which have a vulnerable server present as a member. The confidentiality of past conversations in end-to-end encrypted rooms is not impacted. The key generation issue was fixed in matrix-tools 0.5.7, released as part of ESS Community Helm Chart 25.12.1.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

February 12, 2026 CVE published
February 12, 2026 Record updated