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Directus' insufficient permission checks can enable unauthenticated users to manually trigger Flows

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jul 14, 2025 in directus/directus • Updated Jul 15, 2025

Package

npm directus (npm)

Affected versions

< 11.9.0

Patched versions

11.9.0

Description

Summary

Directus Flows with a manual trigger are not validating whether the user triggering the Flow has permissions to the items provided as payload to the Flow. Depending on what the Flow is set up to do this can lead to the Flow executing potential tasks on the attacker's behalf without authenticating.

Impact

Bad actors could execute the manual trigger Flows without authentication, or access rights to the said collection(s) or item(s).

Users with manual trigger Flows configured are impacted as these endpoints do not currently validate if the user has read access to directus_flows or to the relevant collection/items. The manual trigger Flows should have tighter security requirements as compared to webhook Flows where users are expected to perform do their own checks.

Workarounds

Users have to implement permission checks for read access to Flows and read access to relevant collection/items.

References

@br41nslug br41nslug published to directus/directus Jul 14, 2025
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jul 15, 2025
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jul 15, 2025
Reviewed Jul 15, 2025
Last updated Jul 15, 2025

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(13th percentile)

Weaknesses

Improper Authorization

The product does not perform or incorrectly performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action. Learn more on MITRE.

Improper Authentication

When an actor claims to have a given identity, the product does not prove or insufficiently proves that the claim is correct. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2025-53889

GHSA ID

GHSA-7cvf-pxgp-42fc

Source code

Credits

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