CVE-2026-41939: Care Everywhere Gateway RCE Vulnerability

CVE-2026-41939 Overview

CVE-2026-41939 is a hard-coded credentials vulnerability [CWE-1392] in Care Everywhere Gateway 14.3.10. The product bundles WildFly 8.2.0.Final, whose management interface listens on TCP port 20990 with default credentials identical across every installation. Unauthenticated remote attackers can authenticate to the exposed WildFly management console and deploy a malicious Web Application Archive (WAR) file through the Deployments interface. Successful exploitation grants remote code execution under the Windows machine account context. Care Everywhere Gateway version 14.x.x reached end-of-life (EOL) in 2017, and later product releases addressed the finding.

Critical Impact
Unauthenticated attackers reach full remote code execution on the host by uploading a WAR payload via the WildFly management console using shared default credentials.

Affected Products

Care Everywhere Gateway 14.3.10
Care Everywhere Gateway 14.x.x (end-of-life since 2017)
Bundled WildFly 8.2.0.Final management interface on port 20990

Discovery Timeline

2026-07-29 - CVE-2026-41939 published to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
2026-07-30 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2026-41939

Vulnerability Analysis

Care Everywhere Gateway 14.3.10 ships with WildFly 8.2.0.Final configured with hard-coded administrative credentials. Every installation uses the same account, so knowledge of one deployment yields access to all others. The WildFly management interface is exposed on TCP port 20990, providing a network-reachable authentication endpoint. Once authenticated, an attacker interacts with the standard Deployments workflow, a legitimate feature in WildFly's administrative console. Because the product line was declared end-of-life in 2017, affected 14.x.x installations receive no security updates from the vendor. Later product releases outside the 14.x.x branch have addressed the finding.

Root Cause

The root cause is embedded, shared credentials distributed as part of the software package, tracked under CWE-1392: Use of Default Credentials. The credentials cannot be considered secret because they are present in every install image and grant full WildFly management privileges by design.

Attack Vector

Exploitation requires only network reachability to port 20990 on the target host. The attacker authenticates to the WildFly HTTP management interface with the built-in credentials, then uses the Deployments interface to upload a WAR archive containing a JSP webshell or Java payload. WildFly deploys and executes the archive, running attacker-controlled code under the Windows machine account. A public proof-of-concept demonstrating the workflow is available in the GitHub Gist PoC Code referenced in the VulnCheck Advisory: Care Everywhere RCE.

No synthetic exploitation code is provided here. See the referenced PoC and advisory for reproduction details.

Detection Methods for CVE-2026-41939

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected HTTP authentication attempts to /management on TCP port 20990 from external or non-administrative source addresses.
New or unfamiliar WAR files appearing under the WildFly standalone/deployments/ directory.
WildFly server.log entries showing Deployed "<name>.war" events not tied to a change ticket.
Child processes such as cmd.exe, powershell.exe, or rundll32.exe spawned from the java.exe process hosting WildFly.

Detection Strategies

Alert on any successful login to the WildFly management HTTP interface on port 20990 from sources outside a defined administrative allowlist.
Monitor process ancestry for Java runtimes spawning Windows command interpreters or network utilities.
Inspect file writes under the WildFly deployments/ folder for .war files created outside change windows.
Correlate outbound connections from the WildFly host to unknown external endpoints following deployment events.

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable WildFly audit logging for management operations and forward management-audit.log to a central log platform.
Capture NetFlow or firewall logs for TCP 20990 and treat any external ingress as a high-severity event.
Baseline the list of deployed applications and alert on additions or replacements.

How to Mitigate CVE-2026-41939

Immediate Actions Required

Block inbound access to TCP port 20990 at the perimeter and host firewall, restricting it to a management jump host.
Rotate the WildFly ManagementRealm credentials and remove any default accounts documented in the shipped mgmt-users.properties.
Inventory standalone/deployments/ on every Care Everywhere Gateway host and remove any WAR files not authorized by change control.
Plan migration away from the end-of-life 14.x.x branch to a supported release that addresses the finding.

Patch Information

Care Everywhere Gateway 14.x.x has been end-of-life since 2017 and will not receive a fix. According to the VulnCheck Advisory: Care Everywhere RCE, future product releases have addressed the underlying issue. Operators must upgrade to a supported release rather than expect a backported patch.

Workarounds

Bind the WildFly management interface to 127.0.0.1 in standalone.xml so it is not reachable over the network.
Place the gateway host behind a network segment that denies TCP 20990 from all sources except designated administrators.
Replace the shipped hard-coded management user with a strong, per-host credential managed through a secrets vault.
Disable or remove the WildFly HTTP management interface entirely if it is not required for operations.

bash

# Configuration example: restrict WildFly management interface to localhost
# Edit standalone/configuration/standalone.xml, then restart WildFly

<interfaces>
    <interface name="management">
        <inet-address value="127.0.0.1"/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

<socket-binding-group name="standard-sockets" default-interface="public">
    <socket-binding name="management-http" interface="management" port="20990"/>
</socket-binding-group>

# Remove the default management user and add a new one
./bin/jboss-cli.sh --connect --command="/core-service=management/security-realm=ManagementRealm:read-resource"
./bin/add-user.sh -u '<new-admin>' -p '<strong-password>' -r ManagementRealm