Vulnerability details
CVE-2026-59093
Weaviate < 1.38.0 - Privilege Escalation via Unchecked Permissions in RBAC Role Assignment
Official 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 scores
| Score | Version | Source | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8.7High | 4.0 | CVEProject cvelistV5 (CNA) (VulnCheck) | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N |
| 8.8High | 3.1 | CVEProject cvelistV5 (CNA) (VulnCheck) | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Versions | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weaviate | weaviate | v < 1.38.0 | CVEProject cvelistV5 (CNA) |
References and advisories
4- https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/releases/tag/v1.38.0 release-notes
- https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/pull/11493 issue-trackingpatch
- https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/commit/2c75f6fb217631f7751c4b2a7d37a488cef13edb patch
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/weaviate-privilege-escalation-via-unchecked-permissions-in-rbac-role-assignment third-party-advisory
Details
- Published
- 2026-07-02
- Last updated
- 2026-11-08
- State
- Published
- Assigner (CNA)
- VulnCheck
Exploit prediction (EPSS)
SSVC assessment (CISA)
- Automatable
- No
- Exploitation
- None
- Technical impact
- Total
Weaknesses (CWE)
- CWE-266Incorrect Privilege Assignment