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High

Symfony: Security Firewall Bypass via failure_forward Subrequest: Unauthenticated Access to access_control-Protected GET Routes

  • Disclosed: 15.06.2026
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 10:22

Description

When a firewall is configured with form-login (or any authenticator using DefaultAuthenticationFailureHandler) and the failure_forward: true option, the handler reads the _failure_path parameter from the failing login request and uses it as the path of an internal subrequest dispatched through HttpKernelInterface::SUB_REQUEST.

Symfony's Firewall::onKernelRequest listener intentionally skips subrequests under the assumption they are internally generated and trusted, which also means AccessListener (the listener that evaluates access_control) does not run. Because the attacker controls the target of the subrequest, an unauthenticated POST to the check path with _failure_path=/admin/whatever performs a local request forgery that executes the target controller outside the firewall perimeter and returns its response to the caller.

Applications that follow Symfony's recommended best practice of protecting administrative areas with broad access_control rules (e.g. ^/admin requires ROLE_ADMIN) and expose read-only GET endpoints under that area (data exports, internal APIs, account views) are fully exposed: any such GET route can be read by an unauthenticated attacker without any developer misconfiguration, debug mode, or state-changing GET handler being required.

Resolution

DefaultAuthenticationFailureHandler no longer honors the request-supplied _failure_path parameter when failure_forward is enabled. The subrequest is always dispatched to the configured failure_path option (defaulting to login_path), which is set by the application owner and not by the request. The redirect branch (failure_forward: false) is unchanged because redirects re-enter the firewall on the next request and are not subject to this bypass.

The patch for this issue is available here for branch 5.4.

Credits

Symfony would like to thank Nguyen Ngoc Toan Thang (@a-tt-om) and Tran Quoc Tri Trung (@teebow1e) for reporting the issue, and Nicolas Grekas for providing the fix.

Affected software

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PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Composer package symfony/security-http < 5.4.53, >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.41, >= 7.0.0, < 7.4.13, >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.13 5.4.53, 6.4.41, 7.4.13, 8.0.13
Composer package symfony/symfony < 5.4.53, >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.41, >= 7.0.0, < 7.4.13, >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.13 5.4.53, 6.4.41, 7.4.13, 8.0.13

References

CVSS score -
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-863
Platform
Composer
Package
symfony/security-http, symfony/symfony
Disclosed
15.06.2026
Updated
11.10.2026 10:22

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-6h46-9jf5-q59x - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: symfony/symfony

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 (100) in the archive
Total entries
100
First → latest
11.2019 06.2026
Without a fix
0
Exploited in attacks
0

Severity breakdown

  • Critical 8
  • High 28
  • Medium 51
  • Low 13

Disclosures per year

Severity:
  1. Symfony: Security Firewall Bypass via failure_forward Subrequest: Unauthenticated Access to access_control-Protected GET Routes this entry
    High CVE-2026-48489 < 5.4.53, >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.41, >= 7.0.0, < 7.4.13, >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.13 5.4.53, 6.4.41, 7.4.13, 8.0.13
  2. Symfony has Unauthenticated PHP Object Deserialization in MonologBridge server:log Listener
    High CVE-2026-45077 < 5.4.52, >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.40, >= 7.0.0, < 7.4.12, >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.12 5.4.52, 6.4.40, 7.4.12, 8.0.12
  3. Symfony's HEAD Request Bypasses methods: ['GET'] Filter in #[IsGranted] / #[IsSignatureValid] / #[IsCsrfTokenValid]
    High CVE-2026-45075 >= 7.4.0, < 7.4.12, >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.12 7.4.12, 8.0.12
  4. Symfony has Email Header / SMTP Command Injection via CRLF in Symfony\Component\Mime\Address
    High CVE-2026-45067 < 5.4.52, >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.40, >= 7.0.0, < 7.4.12, >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.12 5.4.52, 6.4.40, 7.4.12, 8.0.12
  5. Symfony Vulnerable to Identity Spoofing via Unanchored DN Regex in X509Authenticator
    High CVE-2026-45063 < 5.4.52, >= 6.0.0-BETA1, < 6.4.40, >= 7.0.0-BETA1, < 7.4.12, >= 8.0.0-BETA1, < 8.0.12 5.4.52, 6.4.40, 7.4.12, 8.0.12
  6. Symfony's incorrect parsing of PATH_INFO can lead to limited authorization bypass
    High · 7.3 CVE-2025-64500 >= 2.0.0, < 5.4.50, >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.29, >= 7.0.0, < 7.3.7 5.4.50, 6.4.29, 7.3.7
  7. Symfony vulnerable to command execution hijack on Windows with Process class
    High · 8.4 CVE-2024-51736 < 5.4.46, >= 6.0.0, < 6.4.14, >= 7.0.0, < 7.1.7 5.4.46, 6.4.14, 7.1.7
  8. Symfony Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerability in the Web Profiler
    High · 8.1 CVE-2014-6072 >= 2.0.0, < 2.3.19, >= 2.4.0, < 2.4.9, >= 2.5.0, < 2.5.4 2.3.19, 2.4.9, 2.5.4
  9. Symfony XML Entity Expansion security vulnerability
    High · 7.5 ghsa-q2gc-gg3x-7942 >= 2.0.0, < 2.0.17 2.0.17
  10. Symfony XML decoding attack vector through external entities
    Critical · 9.8 ghsa-mmcv-fvq8-r9x3 >= 2.0.0, < 2.0.11 2.0.11
  11. Symfony allows direct access of ESI URLs behind a trusted proxy
    High · 7.5 CVE-2014-5245 >= 2.0.0, < 2.3.19, >= 2.4.0, < 2.4.9, >= 2.5.0, < 2.5.4 2.3.19, 2.4.9, 2.5.4
  12. Symfony vulnerable to denial of service via a malicious HTTP Host header
    High · 7.5 CVE-2014-5244 >= 2.0.0, < 2.3.19, >= 2.4.0, < 2.4.9, >= 2.5.0, < 2.5.4 2.3.19, 2.4.9, 2.5.4
  13. Code injection in the way Symfony implements translation caching in FrameworkBundle
    High · 7.5 CVE-2014-4931 >= 2.0.0, < 2.3.19, >= 2.4.0, < 2.4.9, >= 2.5.0, < 2.5.4 2.3.19, 2.4.9, 2.5.4
  14. Symfony Incorrect Access Control
    Critical · 9.8 CVE-2017-11365 >= 2.7.30, < 2.7.32, >= 2.8.23, < 2.8.25, >= 3.2.10, < 3.2.12, >= 3.3.3, < 3.3.5 2.7.32, 2.8.25, 3.2.12, 3.3.5
  15. Symphony Denial of Service Via Overlong Usernames
    High · 7.5 CVE-2016-4423 >= 2.3.0, < 2.3.41, >= 2.4.0, < 2.7.13, >= 2.8.0, < 2.8.6, >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.6 2.3.41, 2.7.13, 2.8.6, 3.0.6
  16. Symfony Cryptographic Vulnerability
    High · 7.5 CVE-2016-1902 >= 2.3.0, < 2.3.37, >= 2.4.0, < 2.6.13, >= 2.7.0, < 2.7.9 2.3.37, 2.6.13, 2.7.9
  17. Symfony Vulnerable to Timing Attack
    High CVE-2015-8125 >= 2.3.0, < 2.3.35, >= 2.7.0, < 2.7.7, >= 2.4.0, < 2.6.12 2.3.35, 2.7.7, 2.6.12
  18. Symphony Vulnerable to PHP Code Injection via YAML Parsing
    High CVE-2013-1348 >= 2.0.0, < 2.0.22 2.0.22
  19. Symfony Arbitrary PHP code Execution
    High CVE-2013-1397 >= 2.2.0-BETA1, < 2.2.0-BETA2, >= 2.0.0, < 2.0.22, >= 2.1.0, < 2.1.7 2.2.0-BETA2, 2.0.22, 2.1.7
  20. Symfony Authentication Bypass
    Critical · 9.8 CVE-2018-11407 >= 2.8.0, < 2.8.37, >= 3.0.0, < 3.3.17, >= 3.4.0, < 3.4.7, >= 4.0.0, < 4.0.7 2.8.37, 3.3.17, 3.4.7, 4.0.7
Show more (16) Showing 20 of 36

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