CVE-2024-45596 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.4) CWE-524 vulnerability in directus. A fix is available for directus — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Directus's session is cached for OpenID and OAuth2 if `redirect` is not used
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-45596.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-45596 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
directusnpm@directus/apinpmDescription
Summary
Unauthenticated user can access credentials of last authenticated user via OpenID or OAuth2 where the authentication URL did not include redirect query string.
For example:
- Project is configured with OpenID or OAuth2
- Project is configured with cache enabled
- User tries to login via SSO link, but without
redirectquery string - After successful login, credentials are cached
- If an unauthenticated user tries to login via SSO link, it will return the credentials of the other last user
The SSO link is something like https://directus.example.com/auth/login/openid/callback, where openid is the name of the OpenID provider configured in Directus
Details
This happens because on that endpoint for both OpenId and Oauth2 Directus is using the respond middleware, which by default will try to cache GET requests that met some conditions. Although, those conditions do not include this scenario, when an unauthenticated request returns user credentials.
For OpenID, this can be seen here:
https://github.com/directus/directus/blob/main/api/src/auth/drivers/openid.ts#L453-L459
And for OAuth2 can be seen here
https://github.com/directus/directus/blob/main/api/src/auth/drivers/oauth2.ts#L422-L428
PoC
- Create a new Directus project
- Set
CACHE_ENABLEDto true - Set
CACHE_STOREtoredisfor reliable results (if using memory with multiple nodes, it may only happen sometimes, due to cache being different for different nodes) - Configure
REDISwith redis string or redis host, port, user, etc. - Set
AUTH_PROVIDERStoopenid - Set
PUBLIC_URLto the the main URL of your project . For example,PUBLIC_URL: http://localhost:8055 - Configure
AUTH_OPENID_CLIENT_ID,AUTH_OPENID_CLIENT_SECRET,AUTH_OPENID_ISSUER_URLwith proper OpenID configurations - Be sure that on OpenID external app you have configured Redirect URI to
http://localhost:8055/auth/login/openid/callback - Run Directus
- Open the SSO link like
http://localhost:8055/auth/login/openid/callback - Do the authentication on the OpenID external webpage
- Verify that it you got redirected to a page with a JSON including
access_tokenproperty - Be sure all anonymous mode windows are closed
- Open an anonymous window and go to the SSO Link
http://localhost:8055/auth/login/openid/callbackand see you have the same credentials, even though you don't have any session because you are in anonymous mode
Impact
All projects using OpenID or OAuth 2, that does not include redirect query string on loggin in users.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | directus | all versions | 10.13.3npm install directus@10.13.3 |
| 📦npm | directus | ≥ 11.0.0-rc.1&&< 11.1.0 | 11.1.0npm install directus@11.1.0 |
| 📦npm | @directus/api | all versions | 21.0.1npm install @directus/api@21.0.1 |
| 📦npm | @directus/api | ≥ 22.0.0&&< 22.2.0 | 22.2.0npm install @directus/api@22.2.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for directus, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update directus to 10.13.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-45596 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-45596 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-45596. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-45596 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-45596 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.