What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2020-15248: Privilege escalation by backend users assigned to the default "Publisher" system role

• Severity: medium (CVSS 4.2 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2020-11-23 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-863

Description

October is a free, open-source, self-hosted CMS platform based on the Laravel PHP Framework. In October CMS from version 1.0.319 and before version 1.0.470, backend users with the default "Publisher" system role have access to create & manage users where they can choose which role the new user has. This means that a user with "Publisher" access has the ability to escalate their access to "Developer" access. Issue has been patched in Build 470 (v1.0.470) & v1.1.1.

Affected products

• octobercms october: from 1.0.319 before 1.0.469 — fixed in 1.0.469

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: octobercms october 1.0.469. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/octobercms/october/commit/78a37298a4ed4602b383522344a31e311402d829
• https://github.com/octobercms/october/security/advisories/GHSA-rfjc-xrmf-5vvw
• https://github.com/octobercms/october/commit/78a37298a4ed4602b383522344a31e311402d829
• https://github.com/octobercms/october/security/advisories/GHSA-rfjc-xrmf-5vvw

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