Kimai up to 2.56.x Preset-Parent Creation Logic ActivityController.php project.id/customer improper authorization

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Kimai up to 2.56.x and classified as critical. Affected is an unknown function of the file src/Controller/ActivityController.php of the component Preset-Parent Creation Logic. Executing a manipulation of the argument project.id/customer can lead to improper authorization. This vulnerability appears as CVE-2026-52821. The attack may be performed from remote. There is no available exploit. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in Kimai up to 2.56.x. This vulnerability affects an unknown code of the file src/Controller/ActivityController.php of the component Preset-Parent Creation Logic. The manipulation of the argument project.id/customer with an unknown input leads to a improper authorization vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-285. The product does not perform or incorrectly performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

Kimai is an open-source time tracking application. Prior to 2.57.0, GET or POST requests to /en/admin/activity/create/{project} and /en/admin/project/create/{customer} require only the generic create_activity or create_project capability and do not verify edit access to the supplied Project or Customer object. A user who knows a valid project.id or customer identifier can use the preset-parent creation logic in src/Controller/ActivityController.php or src/Controller/ProjectController.php to persist a new child business object under an unauthorized parent, polluting project or customer configuration and influencing later time-entry, rate, reporting, and billing behavior. This issue is fixed in version 2.57.0.

The advisory is shared for download at github.com. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-52821 since 06/08/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be initiated remotely. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The MITRE ATT&CK project declares the attack technique as T1548.002.

By approaching the search of inurl:src/Controller/ActivityController.php it is possible to find vulnerable targets with Google Hacking.

Upgrading to version 2.57.0 eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Name

• Kimai

Version

• 2.0
• 2.1
• 2.2
• 2.3
• 2.4
• 2.5
• 2.6
• 2.7
• 2.8
• 2.9
• 2.10
• 2.11
• 2.12
• 2.13
• 2.14
• 2.15
• 2.16
• 2.17
• 2.18
• 2.19
• 2.20
• 2.21
• 2.22
• 2.23
• 2.24
• 2.25
• 2.26
• 2.27
• 2.28
• 2.29
• 2.30
• 2.31
• 2.32
• 2.33
• 2.34
• 2.35
• 2.36
• 2.37
• 2.38
• 2.39
• 2.40
• 2.41
• 2.42
• 2.43
• 2.44
• 2.45
• 2.46
• 2.47
• 2.48
• 2.49
• 2.50
• 2.51
• 2.52
• 2.53
• 2.54
• 2.55
• 2.56

Website

• Product: https://github.com/kimai/kimai/

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