CVE-2026-35408 — directus
HIGHCVE-2026-35408 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.7) CWE-346 vulnerability in directus. A fix is available for directus — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Directus is Missing Cross-Origin Opener Policy
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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-2026-35408.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
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.
directusnpmDescription
Summary
Directus's Single Sign-On (SSO) login pages lacked a Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy (COOP) HTTP response header. Without this header, a malicious cross-origin window that opens the Directus login page retains the ability to access and manipulate the window object of that page. An attacker can exploit this to intercept and redirect the OAuth authorization flow to an attacker-controlled OAuth client, causing the victim to unknowingly grant access to their authentication provider account (e.g. Google, Discord).
Impact
A successful attack allows the attacker to obtain an OAuth access token for the victim's third-party identity provider account. Depending on the scopes authorized, this can lead to:
- Unauthorized access to the victim's linked identity provider account
- Account takeover of the Directus instance if the attacker can authenticate using the stolen credentials or provider session
Patches
This issue has been addressed by adding the Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy: same-origin HTTP response header to SSO-related endpoints. This header instructs the browser to place the page in its own browsing context group, severing any reference the opener window may hold.
Workarounds
Users who are unable to upgrade immediately can mitigate this vulnerability by configuring their reverse proxy or web server to add the following HTTP response header to all Directus responses: Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy: same-origin
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | directus | all versions | 11.17.0npm install directus@11.17.0 |
Affected Products
directusmonospaceDetection & 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 11.17.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-35408 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-35408 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.