CVE-2026-40172 (GCVE-0-2026-40172)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-05-22 19:00 – Updated: 2026-05-22 19:15
VLAI
Title
authentik: Privilege Escalation via User PATCH: Superuser Group Assignment Bypasses enable_group_superuser
Summary
authentik is an open-source identity provider. In versions prior to 2025.12.5 and 2026.2.0-rc1 through 2026.2.2, the PATCH /api/v3/core/users/{pk}/ API allows a caller with change_user on a target user to assign arbitrary groups through UserSerializer, including groups with is_superuser=True, without requiring enable_group_superuser, leading to privilege escalation. This bypasses the stricter permission model enforced in group-management paths and enables delegated user-management permissions to escalate target users to administrator-equivalent privilege. Users with permissions to update groups or permissions to update users are able to add themselves or other users they have permissions on to users which have superuser permissions. This issue has been fixed in versions 22025.12.5 and 2026.2.3.
Severity
8.1 (High)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
SSVC
Exploitation: none Automatable: no Technical Impact: partial
CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)
Decision recorded 2026-05-22 19:14 UTC
CWE
  • CWE-269 - Improper Privilege Management
Assigner
GitHub_M CNA under the mitre root
CNA scorecard C 72/100 over 7994 records in the last 180 days details
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version CPE status
goauthentik authentik Affected: < 2025.12.5
Affected: >= 2026.2.0-rc1, < 2026.2.3
guessed Create a notification for this product.
Show details on NVD website
To clipboard 

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