Communities and collections administrators can escalate their privilege up to system administrator
Impact
Any community or collection administrator can escalate their permission up to become system administrator.
This vulnerability only existed in 7.0 and does not impact 6.x or below.
Patches
Fix is included in 7.1. Please upgrade to 7.1 at your earliest convenience.
Workarounds
In 7.0, temporarily disable the ability for community or collection administrators to manage permissions or workflows settings, i.e. set the following properties in your local.cfg / dspace.cfg file
core.authorization.collection-admin.policies = false
core.authorization.community-admin.policies = false
core.authorization.community-admin.collection.workflows = falseOnce upgraded to 7.1, these settings can be safely reverted to the default values of true.
References
Discovered during investigation of https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/7928
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Email us at security@dspace.org
Affected software
Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.
| Platform | Package | Vulnerable versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Java / Kotlin (Maven) | org.dspace:dspace-api | >= 7.0, < 7.1 | 7.1 |
References
- https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/security/advisories/GHSA-cf2j-vf36-c6w8
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-41189
- https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/7928
- https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/commit/277b499a5cd3a4f5eb2370513a1b7e4ec2a6e041
- https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/commit/c3bea16ab911606e15ae96c97a1575e1ffb14f8a
- https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace
- CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H- Weakness (CWE)
CWE-863- Platform
- Java / Kotlin (Maven)
- Package
org.dspace:dspace-api- Disclosed
- 01.11.2021
- Updated
- 11.10.2026 12:22
Sources and licenses
OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-cf2j-vf36-c6w8 - CC BY 4.0
Vulnerability history: org.dspace:dspace-api
All published vulnerabilities of this package (Java / Kotlin (Maven)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.
- Total entries
- 8
- First → latest
- 11.2021 07.2026
- Without a fix
- 0
- Exploited in attacks
- 0
Severity breakdown
- High 3
- Medium 5
Disclosures per year
- 2021: 1
- 2022: 1
- 2023: 0
- 2024: 0
- 2025: 2
- 2026: 4
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Communities and collections administrators can escalate their privilege up to system administrator this entry
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