High

Grav vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in Grav Admin: Missing Username Uniqueness Check Allows Admin Account Takeover

  • Disclosed: 02.12.2025
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 10:22

Summary

A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in Grav’s Admin plugin due to the absence of username uniqueness validation when creating users. A user with the create user permission can create a new account using the same username as an existing administrator account, set a new password/email, and then log in as that administrator. This effectively allows privilege escalation from limited user-manager permissions to full administrator access.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Make sure you have two accounts: an admin and a user with create user privilege
  2. In the user account, navigate to /grav-admin/admin/accounts/users and click "Add"
  3. Enter the name of the admin, complete registration and observe that the existing admin’s email is changed to the value you provided.
  4. Log out from user account log in as admin with new credentials

Impact

  1. Full admin takeover by any user with create user permission.
  2. Ability to change admin credentials, install/remove plugins, read or modify site data, and execute any action available to an admin.
  3. Severity: High/Critical.

PoC

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3ab0a7d6-5055-41be-9e0e-2bd6ca359b37

Affected software

Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.

PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Composer package getgrav/grav < 1.8.0-beta.27 1.8.0-beta.27

References

CVSS score 8.8/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-266
Platform
Composer
Package
getgrav/grav
Disclosed
02.12.2025
Updated
11.10.2026 10:22

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-cjcp-qxvg-4rjm - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: getgrav/grav

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Composer package), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

All (99) in the archive
Total entries
99
First → latest
11.2019 09.2026
Without a fix
6
Exploited in attacks
0

Severity breakdown

  • Critical 7
  • High 47
  • Medium 41
  • Low 4

Disclosures per year

  1. 2019: 1
  2. 2020: 1
  3. 2021: 4
  4. 2022: 10
  5. 2023: 5
  6. 2024: 8
  7. 2025: 23
  8. 2026: 47
Severity:
  1. High · 8.8 CVE-2026-72819 < 2.0.13 2.0.13
  2. High CVE-2026-53653 >= 2.0.0-beta.1, < 2.0.0-rc.8, < 1.7.53 2.0.0-rc.8, 1.7.53
  3. High · 8.9 CVE-2026-42611 < 2.0.0-beta.2 2.0.0-beta.2
  4. High · 8.5 CVE-2026-42612 < 2.0.0-beta.2 2.0.0-beta.2
  5. Critical · 9.4 CVE-2026-42613 < 2.0.0-beta.2 2.0.0-beta.2
  6. Critical · 9.1 CVE-2025-66844 <= 1.7.49.5 no fix
  7. High CVE-2025-66298 < 1.8.0-beta.27 1.8.0-beta.27
  8. High CVE-2025-66294 < 1.8.0-beta.27 1.8.0-beta.27
  9. High · 8.5 CVE-2025-66300 < 1.8.0-beta.27 1.8.0-beta.27
  10. High · 8.8 CVE-2025-66299 < 1.8.0-beta.27 1.8.0-beta.27
  11. Grav vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in Grav Admin: Missing Username Uniqueness Check Allows Admin Account Takeover this entry
    High · 8.8 CVE-2025-66296 < 1.8.0-beta.27 1.8.0-beta.27
  12. High · 8.5 CVE-2024-34082 < 1.7.46 1.7.46
  13. High · 8.8 CVE-2024-28119 < 1.7.45 1.7.45
  14. High · 8.8 CVE-2024-28118 < 1.7.45 1.7.45
  15. High · 8.8 CVE-2024-28117 < 1.7.45 1.7.45
Show more (14) Showing 40 of 54

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