CVE-2026-89112 in CLA-Assistant
Summary
by MITRE • 10/13/2026
The admin API endpoint used to retrieve CLA signature records does not consistently enforce the required authorization checks when the target organisation is specified using an organisation ID.An authenticated user with limited privileges could potentially access CLA signature records containing contributor information belonging to an organisation they are not authorized to administer.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/13/2026
The vulnerability identified in this administrative API endpoint represents a critical failure in Access Control logic, specifically falling under the category of Insecure Direct Object References or Broken Access Control as defined by CWE-639 and categorized within MITRE ATT&CK technique T1078 Valid Accounts. The core technical flaw lies in the inconsistent enforcement of authorization checks when an organization is identified via its unique identifier rather than through a validated session context that strictly binds the user to specific organizational permissions. In secure systems, access control decisions must be made based on verified attributes and relationships between the authenticated principal and the target resource, ensuring that users can only interact with data they are explicitly permitted to manage. Here, the system fails to validate whether the requesting user holds administrative privileges for the organization specified by its ID, allowing a bypass of intended security boundaries.
An attacker exploiting this vulnerability would first need valid credentials for an account with limited or no organizational administration rights within the target ecosystem. By crafting API requests that specify different organization IDs in the request payload or URL parameters, the authenticated user can enumerate and retrieve Confidential License Agreement signature records belonging to organizations they do not administer. This behavior indicates a lack of proper object-level authorization checks where the system trusts the input identifier without cross-referencing it against the user's assigned roles and permissions database. The absence of these checks allows for unauthorized data access, violating the principle of least privilege which dictates that users should only have access to resources necessary for their specific role.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe due to the sensitive nature of the exposed data. CLA signature records typically contain personally identifiable information including contributor names, email addresses, and potentially digital signatures or metadata related to software licensing compliance. Unauthorized exposure of this data constitutes a significant privacy breach and may violate regulatory frameworks such as GDPR or CCPA depending on the jurisdiction and data subjects involved. Furthermore, access to these records could facilitate further attacks by providing attackers with valid contact information for social engineering campaigns or enabling them to map out organizational structures and contributor networks within the software supply chain. This undermines trust in the platform's security posture and exposes organizations to potential reputational damage and legal liability.
To mitigate this vulnerability, immediate remediation efforts should focus on implementing robust access control mechanisms at the API level. Developers must ensure that every request involving resource retrieval undergoes a rigorous authorization check that verifies the authenticated user has explicit administrative rights for the specific organization ID provided in the request. This involves querying the permission database to confirm the relationship between the user's account and the target organization before returning any data. Additionally, implementing consistent validation logic across all API endpoints regardless of how resources are identified is essential to prevent similar bypasses through alternative input methods. Regular security testing including penetration tests focused on broken access control scenarios will help identify such logical flaws early in the development lifecycle.