---
title: "CVE-2026-18181: IBM Financial Transaction Manager - Authentication Bypass"
description: "IBM Financial Transaction Manager (FTM) for RedHat OpenShift contains a broken authentication caused by a hard-coded cryptographic key, letting remote attackers bypass authentication and access sensitive information, exploit requires no special conditions."
url: https://panop.io/threat-heartbeat/CVE-2026-18181/
---

# CVE-2026-18181 IBM Financial Transaction Manager - Authentication Bypass

IBM Financial Transaction Manager (FTM) for RedHat OpenShift contains a broken authentication caused by a hard-coded cryptographic key, letting remote attackers bypass authentication and access sensitive information, exploit requires no special conditions.

CVSS base score 8.1 /10

High

CISA KEV

Not listed

Public exploit

None known

Authentication

Not required

EPSS

0.24% chance of exploitation in 30 days

[View the NVD record ↗](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-18181)

## Details

Type

Authentication Bypass

Impact

Broken Authentication, Information Disclosure

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Published

23 September 2026

Updated

15 October 2026

Weakness

[CWE-321](https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/321.html)

## Vendor fix

Update to the latest version with the hard-coded key fixed.

Patching closes this CVE. It does not tell you which of your systems run the affected version, or what else is exposed alongside them.

## References

- [https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-18181](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-18181)
- [https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7288641](https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7288641)

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## What this record can't tell you

- Whether you run the affected software, and where
- Whether an attacker can actually reach and exploit it
- The misconfigurations that never get a CVE number
- What it would cost the business, ranked into what to fix first

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