CVE-2026-40172

high

Published 2026-05-22 · Modified 2026-05-22

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CVSS v3

8.1

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

CVSS v4 NEW

—

not yet in upstream

VIR risk

8.1

Description

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.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

88%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

References

CWEs

CWE-269

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.