CVE-2023-38503: Directus has Incorrect Permission Checking for GraphQL Subscriptions

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2023-07-25 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-200

Description

Directus is a real-time API and App dashboard for managing SQL database content. Starting in version 10.3.0 and prior to version 10.5.0, the permission filters (i.e. `user_created IS $CURRENT_USER`) are not properly checked when using GraphQL subscription resulting in unauthorized users getting event on their subscription which they should not be receiving according to the permissions. This can be any collection but out-of-the box the `directus_users` collection is configured with such a permissions filter allowing you to get updates for other users when changes happen. Version 10.5.0 contains a patch. As a workaround, disable GraphQL subscriptions.

Affected products

directus: from 10.3.0 before 10.5.0 — fixed in 10.5.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: directus 10.5.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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