n8n versions before 1.123.64, 2.29.8, and 2.30.1 contain a privilege escalation vulnerability in Enterprise SSO instance-role provisioning. The provisioning path maps an IdP-asserted role claim to an n8n global role but does not prevent assignment of the global:owner role (unlike the token-exchange identity path, which rejects it). An SSO-authenticated user whose instance-role claim resolves to global:owner is provisioned as instance owner, gaining full administrative control over workflows, credentials, users, and instance configuration. Exploitation requires that Enterprise SSO is configured, instance-role provisioning is enabled via N8N_SSO_SCOPES_PROVISION_INSTANCE_ROLE (disabled by default), and the attacker controls the instance-role claim value issued by the IdP.
https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/n8n-before-privilege-escalation-via-sso-instance-role
https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/security/advisories/GHSA-35q8-9mj6-wjmf
Published: 2026-07-22
Updated: 2026-07-22
Base Score: 7.5
Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Severity: High
Base Score: 8.8
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Severity: High
Base Score: 7.7
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Severity: High