GHSA-6h46-9jf5-q59x CVE-2026-48489
Symfony: Security Firewall Bypass via failure_forward Subrequest: Unauthenticated Access to access_control-Protected GET Routes
- Severity
- 8.7 / 10
- High · CVSS 4.0
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 0.60%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 48.52% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-863 Incorrect Authorization
- Fix
- Available
- 2 packages have a fixed version
Description
Description
When a firewall is configured with form-login (or any authenticator using DefaultAuthenticationFailureHandler) and the failure_forward: true option, the handler reads the _failure_path parameter from the failing login request and uses it as the path of an internal subrequest dispatched through HttpKernelInterface::SUB_REQUEST.
Symfony's Firewall::onKernelRequest listener intentionally skips subrequests under the assumption they are internally generated and trusted, which also means AccessListener (the listener that evaluates access_control) does not run. Because the attacker controls the target of the subrequest, an unauthenticated POST to the check path with _failure_path=/admin/whatever performs a local request forgery that executes the target controller outside the firewall perimeter and returns its response to the caller.
Applications that follow Symfony's recommended best practice of protecting administrative areas with broad access_control rules (e.g. ^/admin requires ROLE_ADMIN) and expose read-only GET endpoints under that area (data exports, internal APIs, account views) are fully exposed: any such GET route can be read by an unauthenticated attacker without any developer misconfiguration, debug mode, or state-changing GET handler being required.
Resolution
DefaultAuthenticationFailureHandler no longer honors the request-supplied _failure_path parameter when failure_forward is enabled. The subrequest is always dispatched to the configured failure_path option (defaulting to login_path), which is set by the application owner and not by the request. The redirect branch (failure_forward: false) is unchanged because redirects re-enter the firewall on the next request and are not subject to this bypass.
The patch for this issue is available here for branch 5.4.
Credits
Symfony would like to thank Nguyen Ngoc Toan Thang (@a-tt-om) and Tran Quoc Tri Trung (@teebow1e) for reporting the issue, and Nicolas Grekas for providing the fix.
Affected versions
Packagist
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| symfony/security-http | < 5.4.53 |
5.4.53 |
| symfony/security-http | >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.41 |
6.4.41 |
| symfony/security-http | >= 7.0.0, < 7.4.13 |
7.4.13 |
| symfony/security-http | >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.13 |
8.0.13 |
| symfony/symfony | < 5.4.53 |
5.4.53 |
| symfony/symfony | >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.41 |
6.4.41 |
| symfony/symfony | >= 7.0.0, < 7.4.13 |
7.4.13 |
| symfony/symfony | >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.13 |
8.0.13 |
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.
symfony/security-http Packagist → 5.4.53
- composer
composer require symfony/security-http:^5.4.53
symfony/symfony Packagist → 5.4.53
- composer
composer require symfony/symfony:^5.4.53
Severity breakdown
CVSS 4.0 8.7
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- None
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Confidentiality (vulnerable system)
- High
- Integrity (vulnerable system)
- None
- Availability (vulnerable system)
- None
- Confidentiality (subsequent systems)
- None
- Integrity (subsequent systems)
- None
- Availability (subsequent systems)
- None
- Exploit maturity
- Not defined
- Scope
- X
CVSS 3.1 7.5
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
Weakness
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
Packages
Other links
- github.com/symfony/symfony/security/advisories/GHSA-6h46-9jf5-q59x
- github.com/symfony/symfony/commit/c48a4276309e11aedeeb0ce3a89dfbf0b4fe04ff
- github.com/FriendsOfPHP/security-advisories/blob/master/symfony/security-http/C…
- github.com/FriendsOfPHP/security-advisories/blob/master/symfony/symfony/CVE-202…
- symfony.com/cve-2026-48489
- github.com/symfony/symfony/releases/tag/v5.4.53
- github.com/symfony/symfony/releases/tag/v6.4.41
- github.com/symfony/symfony/releases/tag/v7.4.13
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-2v3c-qxhr-7vpv Symfony: Unbounded Recursion in the YAML Inline Lexer Lets a Single Document Crash the Process | High | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-r925-mgvr-h9cc Symfony: ReDoS in HeaderUtils::split() Reachable Through the Cache-Control Request Header | High | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-h5x3-xfc9-m39h Symfony: UrlGenerator Dot-Segment Encoding Skips Every Other Chained `../` or `./` → Generated URL Collapses Off-Route Under RFC 3986 Normalization | Medium | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-v3wm-qf9p-c549 Symfony: HtmlSanitizer URL Parser Deny Gates Underinclusive: Percent-Encoded BiDi Marks and Unicode Whitespace Bypass Visual-Spoofing Defense | Medium | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-rrj9-5q2j-4gvr Symfony: Mailomat Mailer Webhook Parser Reads the HMAC Algorithm from the Request: Signature Algorithm Downgrade | Medium | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-38cx-cq6f-5755 Symfony: IpUtils::PRIVATE_SUBNETS Omits IPv6 Transition Forms (6to4, NAT64, Teredo, IPv4-compatible): SSRF Bypass in NoPrivateNetworkHttpClient | High | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-x5qj-865h-mgvm Symfony: HtmlSanitizer UrlAttributeSanitizer Misses URL Attributes | Medium | Also affects symfony/symfony |
| GHSA-fqc7-9xjw-jrh3 SymfonyRuntime CVE-2024-50340 Patch Bypass: Web Requests Can Still Set APP_ENV/APP_DEBUG via parse_str/SAPI Argv Mismatch | Critical | Also affects symfony/symfony |
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