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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.1

CVE-2023-26481 json

Insufficient user check in FlowTokens by Email stage

published 2023-03-04 3 y ago modified 2026-09-10 59 d ago also BIT-authentik-2023-26481 , EUVD-2023-30289 , GHSA-3xf5-pqvf-rqq3

cvss
9.1
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 20%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

authentik is an open-source Identity Provider. Due to an insufficient access check, a recovery flow link that is created by an admin (or sent via email by an admin) can be used to set the password for any arbitrary user. This attack is only possible if a recovery flow exists, which has both an Identification and an Email stage bound to it. If the flow has policies on the identification stage to skip it when the flow is restored (by checking `request.context['is_restored']`), the flow is not affected by this. With this flow in place, an administrator must create a recovery Link or send a recovery URL to the attacker, who can, due to the improper validation of the token create, set the password for any account. Regardless, for custom recovery flows it is recommended to add a policy that checks if the flow is restored, and skips the identification stage. This issue has been fixed in versions 2023.2.3, 2023.1.3 and 2022.12.2.

Patch / fix

  • bitnami authentik 2022.12.3
  • goauthentik authentik 2022.12.3

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
20 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.27% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 20% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 9.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
OSV 3.1 9.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
bitnami authentik
<2022.12.3
>=2023.1.0, <=2023.1.3
>=2023.2.0, <=2023.2.3
2022.12.3

Affected products

  • goauthentik authentik

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-345 Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.