CVE-2026-59093
A user holding only the delegated assign_and_revoke_users or assign_and_revoke_groups permission can assign the built-in admin role, or any high-privilege custom role, to itself or others, escalating to full administrative control of the database.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.71%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
Weaviate before 1.38.0 does not verify that a principal performing an RBAC role assignment holds the permissions granted by the assigned role. The assignRoleToUser and assignRoleToGroup handlers (POST /authz/users/{id}/assign and /authz/groups/{id}/assign) authorize only that the caller may assign roles to the target user or group, not the permissions contained in the assigned roles, unlike role creation which enforces that a user can only create roles with permissions less than or equal to its own. A user holding only the delegated assign_and_revoke_users or assign_and_revoke_groups permission can assign the built-in admin role, or any high-privilege custom role, to itself or others, escalating to full administrative control of the database.
- CVSS 4.0
- 8.7 HIGHCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/M
- EPSS
- 0.71% probability · 52th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-266
- Affected
- weaviate/weaviate
- Source
- disclosure@vulncheck.com
References
- https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/commit/2c75f6fb217631f7751c4b2a7d37a488cef13edbPatch
- https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/pull/11493Issue Tracking, Patch
- https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/releases/tag/v1.38.0Product, Release Notes
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/weaviate-privilege-escalation-via-unchecked-permissions-in-rbac-role-assignmentPatch, Release Notes, Third Party Advisory
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.