CVE-2026-24044: element-hq ess-helm

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-24044 is a critical (CVSS 9.2) vulnerability in element-hq ess-helm. EPSS estimates a 0.32% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 23.8% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 12-02-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 12-02-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

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.

• CWE-336Same Seed in Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG)A Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) uses the same seed each time the product is initialized.