praisonai-platform: Any workspace member can promote themselves or others to owner via PATCH /workspaces/{id}/members/{user_id}

Summary

Type: Vertical privilege escalation. The PATCH /workspaces/{workspace_id}/members/{user_id} endpoint is gated by require_workspace_member(workspace_id), which defaults to min_role="member" and is never overridden by the route. The handler then calls MemberService.update_role(workspace_id, user_id, body.role) which sets the target member's role to whatever the request body specifies, with no check that the caller has owner-or-admin privilege, no check that the new role is not higher than the caller's own, and no check that the caller is not silently promoting themselves. File: src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/api/routes/workspaces.py, lines 115-127; services/member_service.py, lines 55-69; api/deps.py, lines 54-73. Root cause: require_workspace_member exists with a min_role parameter (deps.py:58) but FastAPI's Depends(require_workspace_member) cannot pass arguments, so every route uses the default "member". The route then passes the URL-supplied user_id and the body-supplied role directly to MemberService.update_role, which contains zero permission checks: it loads the member by composite key and assigns member.role = new_role. A user with the lowest possible privilege ("member") thus sets their own role to "owner" with one HTTP PATCH, completing a member-to-owner privilege escalation in a single request.

Affected Code

File 1: src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/api/routes/workspaces.py, lines 115-127.

@router.patch("/{workspace_id}/members/{user_id}", response_model=MemberResponse)
async def update_member_role(
    workspace_id: str,
    user_id: str,
    body: MemberUpdate,
    user: AuthIdentity = Depends(require_workspace_member),         # <-- BUG: defaults to min_role="member"; no role gate
    session: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
):
    member_svc = MemberService(session)
    member = await member_svc.update_role(workspace_id, user_id, body.role)  # <-- writes any role to any member
    if member is None:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="Member not found")
    return MemberResponse.model_validate(member)

File 2: src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/services/member_service.py, lines 55-69.

async def update_role(
    self,
    workspace_id: str,
    user_id: str,
    new_role: str,
) -> Optional[Member]:
    """Update a member's role."""
    if new_role not in VALID_ROLES:                                  # only validates the *value*, not the *caller's right*
        raise ValueError(f"Invalid role: {new_role}. Must be one of {VALID_ROLES}")
    member = await self.get(workspace_id, user_id)
    if member is None:
        return None
    member.role = new_role                                           # <-- BUG: no caller-role check, no target-vs-caller hierarchy check
    await self._session.flush()
    return member

File 3: src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/api/deps.py, lines 54-73.

async def require_workspace_member(
    workspace_id: str,
    user: AuthIdentity = Depends(get_current_user),
    session: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
    min_role: str = "member",                                        # <-- default that no route overrides
) -> AuthIdentity:
    member_svc = MemberService(session)
    has = await member_svc.has_role(workspace_id, user.id, min_role)
    if not has:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=403, detail="Not a member of this workspace or insufficient role")
    user.workspace_id = workspace_id
    return user

Why it's wrong: require_workspace_member was clearly designed to be tunable per-route — the min_role parameter is right there — but Depends(require_workspace_member) in FastAPI cannot pass arguments to a dependency, so every route resolves to the default "member". The author's intent is also evident in MemberService.has_role (member_service.py:80-96), which implements an owner > admin > member hierarchy that this endpoint should be enforcing. The endpoint uses none of it. The VALID_ROLES = {"owner", "admin", "member"} enum check (member_service.py:62) only validates the new role string is recognised, not that the caller has the right to assign it. As a result, a member can write {"role": "owner"} to their own membership row and become owner in one PATCH.

Exploit Chain

1. Attacker registers an account and joins (or is invited to) any workspace W as a "member" (the lowest privilege tier — typically anyone can be added by an owner during onboarding, or self-joins via an invite link). State: attacker has a JWT, is a Member(workspace_id=W, user_id=attacker, role="member").
2. Attacker sends PATCH /workspaces/W/members/<attacker_user_id> with Authorization: Bearer <attacker_jwt> and body {"role": "owner"}. State: control flow enters update_member_role.
3. require_workspace_member(W, attacker) runs. Its default min_role="member" is satisfied because the attacker is a member. The dependency returns the attacker's identity. State: route handler proceeds with no further role gate.
4. MemberService.update_role(W, attacker, "owner") runs. VALID_ROLES accepts "owner". self.get(W, attacker) returns the attacker's existing member row. The next line, member.role = "owner", mutates the attacker's role in place. await self._session.flush() commits. State: attacker is now Member(workspace_id=W, user_id=attacker, role="owner").
5. Attacker re-issues GET /auth/me (or any owner-gated endpoint) and is now treated as workspace owner. State: full administrative control of the workspace, including the ability to add/remove members, change settings, delete the workspace, and exfiltrate everything via the agent/issue/project/comment IDORs that were filed as separate advisories.
6. Final state: starting from the lowest workspace privilege, the attacker holds owner of the workspace within one HTTP request. The same primitive also lets the attacker DEMOTE the legitimate owner by sending PATCH /workspaces/W/members/<owner_user_id> with {"role": "member"} — owner lockout in two requests total.

Security Impact

Severity: sec-critical. CVSS 9.1: network attack, low complexity, low privileges (the lowest tier on the platform), no user interaction, scope changed (the privilege boundary the attacker crosses is the workspace owner, a different security principal), high confidentiality and integrity (full workspace control), no availability claim (the attacker can also DELETE the workspace via the companion delete_workspace advisory, but that is a separate finding). Attacker capability: with one workspace-member token plus one PATCH request, the attacker becomes workspace owner. From there: add/remove any user as owner, change every workspace setting (including the settings JSON blob), demote the legitimate owner to "member", or chain into the companion delete_workspace advisory to wipe the workspace entirely. In multi-tenant SaaS deployments where any signup yields a member-level account in some default workspace, this is effectively pre-auth. Preconditions: praisonai-platform is deployed multi-tenant (more than one workspace exists OR the deployment grants member access on signup); the attacker has any membership token in the target workspace. Differential: source-inspection-verified end-to-end. The asymmetry between require_workspace_member's min_role parameter (which exists, defaults to "member", and is never overridden) and MemberService.has_role's clearly tiered owner > admin > member hierarchy (which exists but is never invoked with anything but the default) is the smoking gun. With the suggested fix below, the route resolves with min_role="owner", the attacker's member-level token fails the gate at the dependency, and the privilege escalation never reaches the service layer.

Suggested Fix

The fix has two parts. First, the route must resolve require_workspace_member with min_role="owner" (or at least "admin"). Second, MemberService.update_role should refuse to set a target's role higher than the caller's own role, so that an admin cannot accidentally produce another owner.

--- a/src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/api/routes/workspaces.py
+++ b/src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/api/routes/workspaces.py
@@ -115,11 +115,16 @@
+def _require_owner(workspace_id: str, user, session):
+    return require_workspace_member(workspace_id, user, session, min_role="owner")
+
 @router.patch("/{workspace_id}/members/{user_id}", response_model=MemberResponse)
 async def update_member_role(
     workspace_id: str,
     user_id: str,
     body: MemberUpdate,
-    user: AuthIdentity = Depends(require_workspace_member),
+    user: AuthIdentity = Depends(_require_owner),
     session: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
 ):
     member_svc = MemberService(session)
+    if not await member_svc.has_role(workspace_id, user.id, "owner"):
+        raise HTTPException(status_code=403, detail="Only owners can change member roles")
     member = await member_svc.update_role(workspace_id, user_id, body.role)

Defence-in-depth in the service layer:

--- a/src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/services/member_service.py
+++ b/src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/services/member_service.py
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
-    async def update_role(self, workspace_id: str, user_id: str, new_role: str) -> Optional[Member]:
+    async def update_role(self, workspace_id: str, caller_id: str, user_id: str, new_role: str) -> Optional[Member]:
         """Update a member's role."""
+        if not await self.has_role(workspace_id, caller_id, "owner"):
+            raise PermissionError("Only owners can update member roles")
         if new_role not in VALID_ROLES:
             raise ValueError(...)

The companion endpoints add_member, remove_member, delete_workspace, and update_workspace exhibit the same Depends(require_workspace_member) default-min-role pattern and are filed as their own advisories so each gets a separate CVE.