CVE-2026-77454: exists/2 predicate silently dropped on limited relationships with a parent() filter in AshSql

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.9 v4.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-08-30 · updated 2026-09-01
Weakness: CWE-863

Description

Incorrect Authorization vulnerability in ash-project ash_sql allows a caller to bypass a scoping or authorization filter expressed as exists/2 over a relationship that declares both a limit (or from_many?) and a parent(...)-referencing filter or sort. AshSql.Join.related_query/3 skips the caller-supplied exists predicate for such relationships and delegates it to limit_from_many/5. When the relationship's own filter or sort references parent(...), limit_from_many/5 takes a branch that drops both the limit and the predicate, emitting a bare correlated EXISTS with no predicate. The check then matches any record that has any related row. Most severely, when the expression backs a policy (for example authorize_if expr(exists(memberships, user_id == ^actor(:id)))), the actor-scoping condition disappears and the policy passes for any actor with any related row. This issue affects ash_sql: from 0.4.1 before 0.7.1.

Affected products

ash-project ash_sql: from 0.4.1 before 0.7.1 — fixed in 0.7.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: ash-project ash_sql 0.7.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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