ZITADEL Allows Account Takeover via Malicious X-Forwarded-Proto Header Injection

CVE-2025-48936 → View on GitHub ↗ View on CVE.org ↗ View on NVD ↗

Description

Impact

A potential vulnerability exists in ZITADEL's password reset mechanism. ZITADEL utilizes the Forwarded or X-Forwarded-Host header from incoming requests to construct the URL for the password reset confirmation link. This link, containing a secret code, is then emailed to the user.

If an attacker can manipulate these headers (e.g., via host header injection), they could cause ZITADEL to generate a password reset link pointing to a malicious domain controlled by the attacker. If the user clicks this manipulated link in the email, the secret reset code embedded in the URL can be captured by the attacker. This captured code could then be used to reset the user's password and gain unauthorized access to their account.

It's important to note that this specific attack vector is mitigated for accounts that have Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) or Passwordless authentication enabled.

Patches

Patched version ensure proper validation of the headers and do not allow downgrading from https to http.

3.x versions are fixed on >=3.2.2
2.71.x versions are fixed on >=2.71.11
2.x versions are fixed on >=2.70.12

Workarounds

The recommended solution is to update ZITADEL to a patched version.

A ZITADEL fronting proxy can be configured to delete all Forwarded and X-Forwarded-Host header values before sending requests to ZITADEL self-hosted environments.

Questions

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please email us at [email protected]

Credits

Thanks to Amit Laish – GE Vernova for finding and reporting the vulnerability.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2025-05-28 17:36:55 UTC
Updated
2025-05-30 15:26:12 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2025-05-28 17:36:55 UTC
NVD published
2025-05-30

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.19% 40.35%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
8.1 3.1 —
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N 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:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
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:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.

Identifiers

Type Value
GHSA GHSA-93m4-mfpg-c3xf ↗
CVE CVE-2025-48936 ↗

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-601 URL Redirection to Untrusted Site ('Open Redirect')

Credits

  • amit-laish (reporter)
  • livio-a (remediation_developer)
  • eliobischof (remediation_reviewer)

Affected packages (5)

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

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
go github.com/zitadel/zitadel < 0.0.0-20250528081227-c097887bc5f6 0.0.0-20250528081227-c097887bc5f6 —
go github.com/zitadel/zitadel/v2 >= 2.38.3, < 2.70.12 2.70.12 —
go github.com/zitadel/zitadel/v2 >= 3.0.0-rc1, < 3.2.2 3.2.2 —
go github.com/zitadel/zitadel/v2 >= 2.71.0, <= 2.71.10 2.71.11 —
go github.com/zitadel/zitadel/v2 < 2.38.2-0.20240919104753-94d1eb767837 — —

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence