What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2020-5231: Opencast users with ROLE_COURSE_ADMIN can create new users

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2020-01-30 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-285

Description

In Opencast before 7.6 and 8.1, users with the role ROLE_COURSE_ADMIN can use the user-utils endpoint to create new users not including the role ROLE_ADMIN. ROLE_COURSE_ADMIN is a non-standard role in Opencast which is referenced neither in the documentation nor in any code (except for tests) but only in the security configuration. From the name – implying an admin for a specific course – users would never expect that this role allows user creation. This issue is fixed in 7.6 and 8.1 which both ship a new default security configuration.

Affected products

• opencast: before 7.6; 8.0 — fixed in 7.6

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: opencast 7.6. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/opencast/opencast/commit/72fad0031d8a82c860e2bde0b27570c5042320ee
• https://github.com/opencast/opencast/security/advisories/GHSA-94qw-r73x-j7hg
• https://github.com/opencast/opencast/commit/72fad0031d8a82c860e2bde0b27570c5042320ee
• https://github.com/opencast/opencast/security/advisories/GHSA-94qw-r73x-j7hg

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