CVE-2024-41942: JupyterHub has a privilege escalation vulnerability with the `admin:users` scope

Severity: high (CVSS 7.2 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: none known
Published: 2024-08-08 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-274

Description

JupyterHub is software that allows one to create a multi-user server for Jupyter notebooks. Prior to versions 4.1.6 and 5.1.0, if a user is granted the `admin:users` scope, they may escalate their own privileges by making themselves a full admin user. The impact is relatively small in that `admin:users` is already an extremely privileged scope only granted to trusted users. In effect, `admin:users` is equivalent to `admin=True`, which is not intended. Note that the change here only prevents escalation to the built-in JupyterHub admin role that has unrestricted permissions. It does not prevent users with e.g. `groups` permissions from granting themselves or other users permissions via group membership, which is intentional. Versions 4.1.6 and 5.1.0 fix this issue.

Affected products

jupyterhub: before 4.1.6; 5.0.0, 5.0.0-beta1, 5.0.0-beta2 — fixed in 4.1.6

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: jupyterhub 4.1.6. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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