Formwork Improperly Managed Privileges in User creation

Description

Summary

The application fails to properly enforce role-based authorization during account creation. Although the system validates that the specified role exists, it does not verify whether the current user has sufficient privileges to assign highly privileged roles such as admin. As a result, an authenticated user with the editor role can create a new account with administrative privileges, leading to full administrative access and complete compromise of the CMS.

Impact

Successful exploitation allows an attacker to:
- Gain full administrative control over the CMS.
- Access all site data and user information.
- Modify system configuration and security settings.
- Create, modify, or delete any user account, including legitimate administrators.

Patches

Formwork 2.3.4 properly assigns roles on user creation.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2026-02-19 20:31:07 UTC
Updated
2026-02-23 22:27:31 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2026-02-19 20:31:07 UTC
NVD published
2026-02-21

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.02% 4.64%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
8.8 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management

Credits

  • G3XAR (reporter)

Affected packages (1)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
composer getformwork/formwork >= 2.0.0, <= 2.3.3 2.3.4

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence