What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-86731: Craft CMS 5.0.0-RC1 before 5.10.12 Permission Escalation via UsersController

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 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: 2026-09-08 · updated 2026-09-19
• Weakness: CWE-862

Description

Craft CMS versions 5.0.0-RC1 through 5.10.11 are missing an admin-target guard in UsersController::actionActivateUser (the users/activate-user action). While the action requires the administrateUsers permission, it does not call requireAdmin() when the targeted user is an administrator, unlike the mirror action actionDeactivateUser. As a result, an authenticated control panel user who is not an administrator but holds the administrateUsers permission can activate a pending or deliberately deactivated administrator account, which can lead to permission escalation when combined with resetting that account's password. The issue is fixed in Craft CMS 5.10.12.

Affected products

• craftcms cms: from 5.0.0-RC1 before 5.10.12 — fixed in 5.10.12

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: craftcms cms 5.10.12. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/craftcms/cms/security/advisories/GHSA-jqf5-vfg6-8cx5
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/craft-cms-5.0.0-rc1-before-5.10.12-permission-escalation-via-userscontroller

Get alerted when CVE-2026-86731 or the next vulnerability affects your stack