Contao does not properly manage privileges for page and article fields

Description

Impact

Under certain conditions, back end users may be able to edit fields of pages and articles without having the necessary permissions.

Patches

Update to Contao 5.3.38 or 5.6.1.

Workarounds

None.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, open an issue in contao/contao.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
medium
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2025-08-28 14:58:22 UTC
Updated
2025-08-28 18:52:02 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2025-08-28 14:58:22 UTC
NVD published
2025-08-28 17:15:36 UTC

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.04% 11.42%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
4.3 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/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: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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
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-269 Improper Privilege Management

Credits

  • lukasbableck (reporter)

Affected packages (4)

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

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
composer contao/core-bundle >= 5.3.0, < 5.3.38 5.3.38
composer contao/core-bundle >= 5.4.0-RC1, < 5.6.1 5.6.1
composer contao/contao >= 5.3.0, < 5.3.38 5.3.38
composer contao/contao >= 5.4.0-RC1, < 5.6.1 5.6.1

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence