GHSA-5fvc-7894-ghp4 CVE-2026-28783
Craft CMS has Twig Function Blocklist Bypass
- Severity
- 0.0 / 10
- Critical · CVSS 4.0
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 0.51%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 43.70% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-1336 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements Used in a Template Engine
- CWE-184 Incomplete List of Disallowed Inputs
- CWE-94 Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
- Fix
5.9.0-beta.1- Upgrade craftcms/cms to this version or later
Description
Craft CMS implements a blocklist to prevent potentially dangerous PHP functions from being called via Twig non-Closure arrow functions.
In order to be able to successfully execute this attack, you need to either have allowAdminChanges enabled on production, or a compromised admin account, or an account with access to the System Messages utility.
Several PHP functions are not included in the blocklist, which could allow malicious actors with the required permissions to execute various types of payloads, including RCEs, arbitrary file reads, SSRFs, and SSTIs.
Twig has already deprecated this behavior, and it will eventually be removed from Twig altogether.
This has been resolved in Craft 4.17.0 and 5.9.0, which removes the blocklist and disables all non-Clousure arrow functions in Twig globally via the enableTwigSandbox config setting. That setting is enabled by default on all new Craft projects. Existing Craft projects will need to enable the config setting to take advantage of it.
Existing projects should update to the patched versions of 5.9.0 and 4.17.0 to mitigate the issue and enable the config setting.
Resources
Affected versions
Packagist
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| craftcms/cms | >= 5.0.0-RC1, < 5.9.0-beta.1 |
5.9.0-beta.1 |
| craftcms/cms | >= 4.0.0-RC1, < 4.17.0-beta.1 |
4.17.0-beta.1 |
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.
craftcms/cms Packagist → 5.9.0-beta.1
- composer
composer require craftcms/cms:^5.9.0-beta.1
Severity breakdown
CVSS 4.0 0.0
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- None
- Privileges required
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Confidentiality (vulnerable system)
- High
- Integrity (vulnerable system)
- High
- Availability (vulnerable system)
- High
- Confidentiality (subsequent systems)
- None
- Integrity (subsequent systems)
- None
- Availability (subsequent systems)
- None
- Exploit maturity
- Unreported
CVSS 3.1 9.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
Weakness
CWE-1336: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements Used in a Template Engine
The product uses a template engine to insert or process externally-influenced input, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements or syntax that can be interpreted as template expressions or other code directives when processed by the engine.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Choose a template engine that offers a sandbox or restricted mode, or at least limits the power of any available expressions, function calls, or commands.
- Implementation: Use the template engine's sandbox or restricted mode, if available.
CWE-184: Incomplete List of Disallowed Inputs
The product implements a protection mechanism that relies on a list of inputs (or properties of inputs) that are not allowed by policy or otherwise require other action to neutralize before additional processing takes place, but the list is incomplete.
How to prevent it
- Implementation: Do not rely exclusively on detecting disallowed inputs. There are too many variants to encode a character, especially when different environments are used, so there is a high likelihood of missing some variants. Only use detection of disallowed inputs as a mechanism for detecting suspicious activity. Ensure that you are using other protection mechanisms that only identify "good" input - such as lists of allowed inputs - and ensure that you are properly encoding your outputs.
CWE-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
The product constructs all or part of a code segment using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the syntax or behavior of the intended code segment.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Refactor your program so that you do not have to dynamically generate code.
- Architecture and Design: Run your code in a "jail" or similar sandbox environment that enforces strict boundaries between the process and the operating system. This may effectively restrict which code can be executed by your product. Examples include the Unix chroot jail and AppArmor. In general, managed code may provide some protection. This may not be a feasible solution, and it only limits the impact to the operating system; the rest of your application may still be subject to compromise. Be careful to avoid CWE-243 and other weaknesses related to jails.
- Implementation: Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does. When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, "boat" may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as "red" or "blue." Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code's environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright. To reduce the likelihood of code injection, use stringent allowlists that limit which constructs are allowed. If you are dynamically constructing code that invokes a function, then verifying that the input is alphanumeric might be insufficient. An attacker might still be able to reference a dangerous function that you did not intend to allow, such as system(), exec(), or exit().
- Testing: Use dynamic tools and techniques that interact with the product using large test suites with many diverse inputs, such as fuzz testing (fuzzing), robustness testing, and fault injection. The product's operation may slow down, but it should not become unstable, crash, or generate incorrect results.
- Operation: Run the code in an environment that performs automatic taint propagation and prevents any command execution that uses tainted variables, such as Perl's "-T" switch. This will force the program to perform validation steps that remove the taint, although you must be careful to correctly validate your inputs so that you do not accidentally mark dangerous inputs as untainted (see CWE-183 and CWE-184).
- Operation: Run the code in an environment that performs automatic taint propagation and prevents any command execution that uses tainted variables, such as Perl's "-T" switch. This will force the program to perform validation steps that remove the taint, although you must be careful to correctly validate your inputs so that you do not accidentally mark dangerous inputs as untainted (see CWE-183 and CWE-184).
- Implementation: For Python programs, it is frequently encouraged to use the ast.literal_eval() function instead of eval, since it is intentionally designed to avoid executing code. However, an adversary could still cause excessive memory or stack consumption via deeply nested structures [REF-1372], so the python documentation discourages use of ast.literal_eval() on untrusted data [REF-1373].
References
Advisories
Packages
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-7vrx-9684-xrf2 Craft CMS stores arbitrary content provided by unauthenticated users in session files | Medium Known exploited | Also affects craftcms/cms |
| GHSA-f3gw-9ww9-jmc3 Craft CMS Allows Remote Code Execution | Critical Known exploited | Also affects craftcms/cms |
| GHSA-x684-96hh-833x Craft CMS has a potential RCE with a compromised security key | High Known exploited | Also affects craftcms/cms |
| GHSA-2p6p-9rc9-62j9 Craft CMS has potential RCE when PHP `register_argc_argv` config setting is enabled | Critical Known exploited | Also affects craftcms/cms |
| GHSA-wg23-69c2-gjc8 Craft CMS: Passkey login accepts replayed WebAuthn assertions | Medium | Also affects craftcms/cms |
| GHSA-957r-qf9p-67xw Craft CMS: Arbitrary file read via SplFileObject in non-sandboxed template contexts | Medium | Also affects craftcms/cms |
| GHSA-596p-6jv8-775v Craft CMS: Authenticated leak of secret environment variables | Medium | Also affects craftcms/cms |
| GHSA-xxpx-f366-4xpq Craft CMS: Authorization bypass: view-only Categories user can modify category structure via structures/move-element | Medium | Also affects craftcms/cms |
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