GHSA-pg62-f8g4-4wqh: phpMyFAQ privilege escalation: GroupController::updatePermissions lets a GROUP_EDIT admin grant rights they do not hold
phpMyFAQ supports delegated administration: the GROUP_EDIT right can be granted to a non-SuperAdmin so they can manage groups. Such an administrator can escalate:
- They call
POST /admin/group/update/permissionswithgroup_idset to a group they belong to (or can manage membership of) andgroup_rights[]containing high-value rights they do not themselves hold (e.g. user administration, or any right gating sensitive actions). - The endpoint grants every requested right to the group with no check that the caller holds them.
- Members of that group — including the attacker — inherit the granted rights, escalating the attacker’s effective privileges.
This is the group-side mirror of exactly what the maintainers blocked on the user-rights side, where the code comment names the threat explicitly (“prevents an administrator with the delegable USER_EDIT right from granting privileges they do not possess (privilege escalation)”). The group path remains open.
PR:L (the attacker needs the delegable GROUP_EDIT right, below SuperAdmin), S:U (escalation within phpMyFAQ’s single authorization authority), C:H/I:H/A:H (inherited rights can reach full administrative read/write/availability control). The one added step versus the user-rights path — the attacker must be a member of the group they elevate (a GROUP_EDIT admin generally manages group membership, hence AC:L) — is noted in Technical Details.
References
Code Behaviors & Features
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