CVE-2022-46172: authentik allows existing authenticated users to create arbitrary accounts

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2022-46172 is a medium (CVSS 6.4) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in goauthentik authentik. EPSS estimates a 0.56% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 46.9% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Timeline

1. 28-12-2022
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 11-04-2025
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

authentik is an open-source Identity provider focused on flexibility and versatility. In versions prior to 2022.10.4, and 2022.11.4, any authenticated user can create an arbitrary number of accounts through the default flows. This would circumvent any policy in a situation where it is undesirable for users to create new accounts by themselves. This may also affect other applications as these new basic accounts would exist throughout the SSO infrastructure. By default the newly created accounts cannot be logged into as no password reset exists by default. However password resets are likely to be enabled by most installations. This vulnerability pertains to the user context used in the default-user-settings-flow, /api/v3/flows/instances/default-user-settings-flow/execute/. This issue has been fixed in versions 2022.10.4 and 2022.11.4.

• CWE-269Improper Privilege ManagementThe product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.
• CWE-287Improper AuthenticationWhen an actor claims to have a given identity, the product does not prove or insufficiently proves that the claim is correct.