Directus: Open Redirect via Parser Bypass in OAuth2/SAML Authentication Flow

Description

Summary

An open redirect vulnerability exists in the login redirection logic. The isLoginRedirectAllowed function fails to correctly identify certain malformed URLs as external, allowing attackers to bypass redirect allow-list validation and redirect users to arbitrary external domains upon successful authentication.

Details

A parser differential exists between the server-side URL validation logic and how modern browsers interpret URL path segments containing backslashes. Specifically, certain URL patterns are incorrectly classified as safe relative paths by the server, but are normalized by browsers into external domain references.

This is particularly impactful in SSO authentication flows (e.g., OAuth2 providers), where an attacker can craft a login URL that redirects the victim to an attacker-controlled site immediately after successful authentication, without any visible indication during the login process.

Impact

  • Phishing: Users may be silently redirected to attacker-controlled sites impersonating legitimate services after authenticating.
  • Credential/token theft: The redirect can be chained to capture OAuth tokens or authorization codes.
  • Trust erosion: Users lose confidence in the application after being redirected to unexpected domains post-login.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
medium
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2026-04-04 06:09:55 UTC
Updated
2026-04-18 11:30:47 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2026-04-04 06:09:55 UTC
NVD published
2026-04-06

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.04% 12.17%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
6.1 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/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:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-20 Improper Input Validation
CWE-184 Incomplete List of Disallowed Inputs
CWE-601 URL Redirection to Untrusted Site ('Open Redirect')

Credits

  • POV9en (reporter)

Affected packages (1)

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

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
npm directus < 11.16.1 11.16.1

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence