Malcolm's nginx Lua role-based access control (RBAC) layer decides whether an authenticated user may reach a role-restricted path (e.g. /htadmin, /auth, /admin_login, /arkime/api/esadmin, NetBox, upload endpoints) by pattern-matching the raw, percent-encoded request URI. Nginx itself, however, selects which location block actually serves the request using the percent-decoded, normalized URI. Because the RBAC check never percent-decodes its input, an authenticated low-privilege user can request an admin-only path using percent-encoding (e.g. /%68tadmin.php) and have nginx route it to the restricted location while the Lua RBAC gate evaluating the un-decoded raw string finds no matching restriction and grants access.
https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-230-01
https://github.com/cisagov/Malcolm/security/advisories/GHSA-f2v6-8cj4-mhr6
Published: 2026-08-18
Updated: 2026-09-08
Base Score: 5.5
Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:N
Severity: Medium
Base Score: 5.4
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
Severity: Medium
Base Score: 5.3
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Severity: Medium
EPSS: 0.00174