CVE-2024-54151 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in directus. A fix is available for directus — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Directus allows unauthenticated access to WebSocket events and operations
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-54151.
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-2024-54151 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 378,567 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
When setting WEBSOCKETS_GRAPHQL_AUTH or WEBSOCKETS_REST_AUTH to "public", an unauthenticated user is able to do any of the supported operations (CRUD, subscriptions) with full admin privileges.
Details
Accountability for unauthenticated WebSocket requests is set to null, which used to be "public permissions" until the Permissions Policy update which now defaults that to system/admin level access. So instead of null we need to make use of createDefaultAccountability() to ensure public permissions are used for unauthenticated users.
PoC
- Start directus with
WEBSOCKETS_ENABLED=true
WEBSOCKETS_GRAPHQL_AUTH=public
WEBSOCKETS_REST_AUTH=public
- Subscribe using GQL or REST or do any CRUD operation on a user created collection (system tables are not reachable with crud)
subscription {
directus_users_mutated {
key
event
data {
id
email
first_name
last_name
password
}
}
}
or
{
"type": "items",
"action": "read",
"collection": "your_collection_name"
}
3a. Open up the data studio as any user. Observe how the subscriber gets notified on each page navigation (because the users last_page gets updated, the password fields is properly redacted here)
3b. Observe receiving all available items from the your_collection_name collection.
Impact
This impacts any Directus instance that has either WEBSOCKETS_GRAPHQL_AUTH or WEBSOCKETS_REST_AUTH set to public allowing unauthenticated users to subscribe for changes on any collection or do REST CRUD operations on user defined collections ignoring permissions.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | directus | ≥ 11.0.0&&< 11.3.0 | 11.3.0npm install directus@11.3.0 |
| 📦npm | @directus/api | ≥ 22.2.0&&< 23.2.0 | 23.2.0npm install @directus/api@23.2.0 |
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 11.3.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-54151 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-2024-54151 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-54151. 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-2024-54151 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-54151 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.