GHSA-gqh3-7856-rjjg CVE-2026-113668

ApostropheCMS: :_id/locales REST route omits the public-API authorization gate its sibling read routes enforce (unauthenticated doc-existence + locale metadata disclosure)

Medium npm

Severity: 5.3 / 10; Medium · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS): 0.32%; Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 25.26% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited: No; Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness: CWE-200 Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor; CWE-862 Missing Authorization
Fix: 4.33.0; Upgrade apostrophe to this version or later

Description

Summary

The REST route GET /api/v1/<piece-type>/:_id/locales (and the equivalent page route) does not apply the publicApiCheckAsync gate that ApostropheCMS's other read routes enforce. An unauthenticated caller can therefore query this route for any document _id and learn whether the document exists and which locales it is published in — a document-existence and locale-metadata disclosure that the read-API is otherwise supposed to gate.

Affected

Repository: apostrophecms/apostrophe (monorepo package apostrophe).
Confirmed at 4.32.2 (commit d3ff8c9 == the shipped 4.32.2; unchanged at current HEAD). No fix at time of report.
Stack: Node.js / Express + MongoDB.
Endpoints: GET /api/v1/<piece-type>/:_id/locales and GET /api/v1/@apostrophecms/page/:_id/locales.

Technical detail

Unsafe: modules/@apostrophecms/piece-type/index.js:397 registers the :_id/locales route with no publicApiCheckAsync. The page module has the same omission at modules/@apostrophecms/page/index.js:925.
Gated siblings: the read routes in the same module (e.g. getAll at piece-type/index.js:256-263) call publicApiCheckAsync (:263) to enforce the public-API access policy.
So the locales handler (which calls getLocales() for the document) runs for any caller regardless of the public-API gate the other read routes apply, returning the document's locale/publication metadata without authorization.

Impact

An unauthenticated caller can confirm the existence of a document by _id and enumerate its locales/publication state — information the read-API is meant to gate. Defensibly 4.3 (AC:H) given the opaque _id precondition (the caller needs a document id).

How it was verified (local only)

Reproduced against apostrophe@4.32.2 (== commit d3ff8c9) locally with synthetic content:

Source review confirmed the :_id/locales route lacks publicApiCheckAsync while the sibling read routes have it.
An unauthenticated GET /api/v1/<piece-type>/<_id>/locales returned the document's locale metadata (existence + locales), while the gated read routes (e.g. getAll) correctly required the public-API policy.
Control: the same route with the publicApiCheckAsync gate added (matching the siblings) denies the unauthenticated request — isolating the missing gate as the cause. Synthetic content only; nothing hosted was touched.

Remediation

Add the publicApiCheckAsync (or equivalent) authorization gate to the :_id/locales route in both the piece-type and page modules, matching the sibling read routes, so the locale/existence metadata is only returned to callers permitted by the public-API policy.

Credit

Please credit Santosh Kumar Puppala (https://github.com/Santoshkumarpuppala).

Affected versions

npm

Package	Vulnerable	Fixed in
apostrophe	`< 4.33.0`	`4.33.0`

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.

apostrophe npm → `4.33.0`

npm

npm install apostrophe@4.33.0

yarn

yarn add apostrophe@4.33.0

pnpm

pnpm add apostrophe@4.33.0

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 5.3

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: None
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-862: Missing Authorization

The product does not perform an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action.

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

github.com/apostrophecms/apostrophe

Timeline

Oct 20, 2026 Published
Oct 20, 2026 Last updated by the source
Oct 31, 2026 Latest EPSS score

Advisory	Severity	Why it's related
GHSA-86wm-68pq-5jwq ApostropheCMS: Unauthenticated resource exhaustion via pre-auth aposBigUpload processing in @apostrophecms/import-export	High	Also affects apostrophe
GHSA-653j-g8j7-gh54 ApostropheCMS: No Attempt Throttling on Authenticated Password-Change Endpoint Enables Unlimited Current-Password Guessing	Medium	Also affects apostrophe
GHSA-vwwx-px9w-crrc ApostropheCMS: Missing Authorization on Notification PATCH/DELETE Endpoints	Low	Also affects apostrophe
GHSA-vmxh-77cw-65j7 ApostropheCMS: Authenticated Object-Level Authorization Bypass in exist-in-locale Reveals Restricted Localized Draft Identifiers	Medium	Also affects apostrophe
GHSA-m2m5-rw3w-cwmj ApostropheCMS: Client-side Prototype Pollution in apos.http.parseQuery leading to DOM-based XSS against authenticated users	Medium	Also affects apostrophe
GHSA-hhvr-8m24-qqr3 ApostropheCMS: Cross-domain session token in URL confers session takeover	Medium	Also affects apostrophe
GHSA-j5rq-xfvr-p969 ApostropheCMS: Authenticated projection-exclusion prototype-member deletion in @apostrophecms/db-connect causes process-wide denial of service	High	Also affects apostrophe
GHSA-qhcq-9pm2-c9w9 ApostropheCMS: Unauthenticated CSV import requests leave rejected uploads in the system temporary directory	High	Also affects apostrophe

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