CVE-2026-59093

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.

Severity (CVSS)

Weaknesses

• CWE-266 — Incorrect Privilege Assignment

Affected products

References

• https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/releases/tag/v1.38.0 (release-notes)
• https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/pull/11493 (issue-tracking)
• 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)