GHSA-38hg-ww64-rrwc CVE-2026-35442
Directus: Authenticated Users Can Extract Concealed Fields via Aggregate Queries
- Severity
- 8.1 / 10
- High · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 0.34%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 27.17% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-200 Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
- CWE-863 Incorrect Authorization
- Fix
11.17.0- Upgrade directus to this version or later
Description
Summary
Aggregate functions (min, max) applied to fields with the conceal special type incorrectly return raw database values instead of the masked placeholder. When combined with groupBy, any authenticated user with read access to the affected collection can extract concealed field values, including static API tokens and two-factor authentication secrets from directus_users.
Details
Fields marked with conceal are protected by payload processing logic that replaces real values with a masked placeholder on read. This protection works correctly for standard item queries, but aggregate query results are structured differently, operations are nested under their function name rather than appearing as flat field keys. The masking logic does not account for this nested structure, causing it to silently skip concealed fields in aggregate responses and return their raw values to the client.
Impact
-
Account Takeover An authenticated attacker can harvest static API tokens for all users, including administrators, enabling immediate authentication as any account without credentials.
-
2FA Bypass TOTP seeds stored in directus_users can similarly be extracted, allowing an attacker to bypass two-factor authentication for any account.
Affected versions
npm
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| directus | < 11.17.0 |
11.17.0 |
How to fix
Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.
directus npm → 11.17.0
- npm
npm install directus@11.17.0- yarn
yarn add directus@11.17.0- pnpm
pnpm add directus@11.17.0
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 8.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- None
Weakness
CWE-200: Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Compartmentalize the system to have "safe" areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area. Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.
CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization
The product performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action, but it does not correctly perform the check.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Divide the product into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Reduce the attack surface by carefully mapping roles with data and functionality. Use role-based access control (RBAC) [REF-229] to enforce the roles at the appropriate boundaries. Note that this approach may not protect against horizontal authorization, i.e., it will not protect a user from attacking others with the same role.
- Architecture and Design: Ensure that access control checks are performed related to the business logic. These checks may be different than the access control checks that are applied to more generic resources such as files, connections, processes, memory, and database records. For example, a database may restrict access for medical records to a specific database user, but each record might only be intended to be accessible to the patient and the patient's doctor [REF-7].
- Architecture and Design: Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid. For example, consider using authorization frameworks such as the JAAS Authorization Framework [REF-233] and the OWASP ESAPI Access Control feature [REF-45].
- Architecture and Design: For web applications, make sure that the access control mechanism is enforced correctly at the server side on every page. Users should not be able to access any unauthorized functionality or information by simply requesting direct access to that page. One way to do this is to ensure that all pages containing sensitive information are not cached, and that all such pages restrict access to requests that are accompanied by an active and authenticated session token associated with a user who has the required permissions to access that page.
- System Configuration, Installation: Use the access control capabilities of your operating system and server environment and define your access control lists accordingly. Use a "default deny" policy when defining these ACLs.
References
Advisories
Packages
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-c6w9-5g5j-jh2p Directus: Authorization-dependent response served from unsegmented cache key | High | Also affects directus |
| GHSA-j5h6-vqc3-phqh Directus: SSRF Protection Bypass via 0.0.0.0 in File Import | High | Also affects directus |
| GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh Directus: Unauthenticated Denial of Service via GraphQL Alias Amplification of Expensive Health Check Resolver | High | Also affects directus |
| GHSA-ph52-67fq-75wj Directus: GraphQL Alias Amplification Denial of Service Due to Missing Query Cost/Complexity Limits | Medium | Also affects directus |
| GHSA-mvv8-v4jj-g47j Directus: Sensitive fields exposed in revision history | Medium | Also affects directus |
| GHSA-qqmv-5p3g-px89 Directus: TUS Upload Authorization Bypass Allows Arbitrary File Overwrite | High | Also affects directus |
| GHSA-wv3h-5fx7-966h Directus: SSRF Protection Bypass via IPv4-Mapped IPv6 Addresses in File Import | High | Also affects directus |
| GHSA-wxwm-3fxv-mrvx Directus: GraphQL Schema SDL Disclosure Setting | Medium | Also affects directus |
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