CVE-2026-121442 in HRMS
Summary
by MITRE • 11/03/2026
Frappe HRMS before 15.61.0 contains a permission bypass vulnerability that allows authenticated employees to view other employees' expense advance details due to improper authorization checks. Attackers can query the Expense Claim Advances API to retrieve expense advance records belonging to other employees, exposing sensitive financial information.
Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/03/2026
The identified security flaw resides within Frappe HRMS versions prior to 15.61.0 and represents a critical failure in server-side access control mechanisms. This vulnerability is classified as an Insecure Direct Object Reference or Broken Access Control issue, aligning with CWE-284 which describes improper authorization checks where the application fails to verify that the authenticated user has permission to perform the requested action on specific data objects. The core technical deficiency lies in the implementation of the Expense Claim Advances API endpoint. While the system correctly authenticates users and restricts access based on general role-based permissions, it neglects to validate whether the requesting employee is authorized to view financial records associated with other employees. This oversight allows any authenticated user within the HRMS environment to bypass intended data isolation boundaries by manipulating request parameters or simply querying the API without proper ownership verification of the target expense advance records.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability enables unauthorized disclosure of sensitive financial information among colleagues who should not have access to each other's private compensation and reimbursement details. An attacker with valid credentials can systematically query the Expense Claim Advances endpoint to retrieve a comprehensive list of expense advances belonging to all or specific employees within the organization. This exposure compromises employee privacy and violates data protection principles, as it reveals personal financial behaviors such as advance requests, amounts approved, and repayment statuses. In regulated industries where strict adherence to confidentiality is mandated by laws like GDPR or HIPAA if health-related expenses are involved, this breach could lead to significant legal liabilities and reputational damage for the organization hosting the HRMS instance.
The attack vector leverages standard HTTP GET or POST requests against the vulnerable API endpoint, requiring only valid authentication tokens which are typically easy to obtain through credential theft or session hijacking techniques documented in MITRE ATT&CK framework under tactics such as Credential Access and Collection. Once authenticated, the exploitation is straightforward and does not require complex payload construction, making it highly accessible for malicious insiders or external attackers who have compromised low-privilege user accounts. The impact extends beyond mere data leakage; it can facilitate social engineering attacks where adversaries use retrieved financial details to craft more convincing phishing campaigns targeting specific employees based on their known financial stressors or recent large transactions.
Mitigation strategies must prioritize immediate patching of the Frappe HRMS software to version 15.61.0 or later, which includes corrected authorization logic ensuring that API responses are filtered by user ownership before being returned to the client. In environments where upgrading is not immediately feasible, administrators should implement a Web Application Firewall rule set designed to detect and block anomalous patterns of bulk data retrieval from employee-specific endpoints. Additionally, enforcing strict role-based access control policies that limit API visibility based on hierarchical job levels can reduce the blast radius if such vulnerabilities persist in legacy systems. Regular security audits focusing on object-level permission checks are essential to prevent similar flaws where business logic fails to enforce data isolation between distinct user entities within multi-tenant or shared HR environments.