Directus is a real-time API and App dashboard for managing SQL database content. In affected versions if there are two overlapping policies for the `update` action that allow access to different fields, instead of correctly checking access permissions against the item they apply for the user is allowed to update the superset of fields allowed by any of the policies. E.g. have one policy allowing update access to `field_a` if the `id == 1` and one policy allowing update access to `field_b` if the `id == 2`. The user with both these policies is allowed to update both `field_a` and `field_b` for the items with ids `1` and `2`. Before v11, if a user was allowed to update an item they were allowed to update the fields that the single permission, that applied to that item, listed. With overlapping permissions this isn't as clear cut anymore and the union of fields might not be the fields the user is allowed to update for that specific item. The solution that this PR introduces is to evaluate the permissions for each field that the user tries to update in the validateItemAccess DB query, instead of only verifying access to the item as a whole. This is done by, instead of returning the actual field value, returning a flag that indicates if the user has access to that field. This uses the same case/when mechanism that is used for stripping out non permitted field that is at the core of the permissions engine. As a result, for every item that the access is validated for, the expected result is an item that has either 1 or null for all the "requested" fields instead of any of the actual field values. These results are not useful for anything other than verifying the field level access permissions. The final check in validateItemAccess can either fail if the number of items does not match the number of items the access is checked for (ie. the user does not have access to the item at all) or if not all of the passed in fields have access permissions for any of the returned items. This is a vulnerability that allows update access to unintended fields, potentially impacting the password field for user accounts. This has been addressed in version 11.1.2 and all users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:

  - Directus is a real-time API and App dashboard for managing SQL database content. In affected versions if
    there are two overlapping policies for the `update` action that allow access to different fields, instead
    of correctly checking access permissions against the item they apply for the user is allowed to update the
    superset of fields allowed by any of the policies. E.g. have one policy allowing update access to
    `field_a` if the `id == 1` and one policy allowing update access to `field_b` if the `id == 2`. The user
    with both these policies is allowed to update both `field_a` and `field_b` for the items with ids `1` and
    `2`. Before v11, if a user was allowed to update an item they were allowed to update the fields that the
    single permission, that applied to that item, listed. With overlapping permissions this isn't as clear cut
    anymore and the union of fields might not be the fields the user is allowed to update for that specific
    item. The solution that this PR introduces is to evaluate the permissions for each field that the user
    tries to update in the validateItemAccess DB query, instead of only verifying access to the item as a
    whole. This is done by, instead of returning the actual field value, returning a flag that indicates if
    the user has access to that field. This uses the same case/when mechanism that is used for stripping out
    non permitted field that is at the core of the permissions engine. As a result, for every item that the
    access is validated for, the expected result is an item that has either 1 or null for all the "requested"
    fields instead of any of the actual field values. These results are not useful for anything other than
    verifying the field level access permissions. The final check in validateItemAccess can either fail if the
    number of items does not match the number of items the access is checked for (ie. the user does not have
    access to the item at all) or if not all of the passed in fields have access permissions for any of the
    returned items. This is a vulnerability that allows update access to unintended fields, potentially
    impacting the password field for user accounts. This has been addressed in version 11.1.2 and all users
    are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability. (CVE-2025-27089)

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
420920	SCA: security update for @directus/api, directus (GHSA-99vm-5v2h-h6r6)	Tenable Cloud Security	SCA Checks	medium
420920	SCA: security update for @directus/api, directus (GHSA-99vm-5v2h-h6r6)	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	SCA Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2025-27089

medium

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium