CVE-2026-45716
HIGHCVE-2026-45716 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in @budibase/worker. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-45716 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Budibase: Builder-to-Admin Privilege Escalation via onboardUsers Endpoint Without SMTP Configuration
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-2026-45716.
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-2026-45716 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 0 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.
@budibase/workernpmDescription
Budibase is an open-source low-code platform. Prior to 3.38.1, the POST /api/global/users/onboard endpoint is protected by workspaceBuilderOrAdmin middleware, allowing any user with builder permissions to access it. When SMTP email is not configured (the default for self-hosted Budibase instances), this endpoint bypasses the admin-restricted invite flow and directly creates users via bulkCreate, accepting arbitrary admin and builder role assignments from the request body. A builder-level user can create a new global admin account and receive the generated password in the response, achieving full privilege escalation. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.38.1.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | @budibase/worker | all versions | 3.38.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for @budibase/worker. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update @budibase/worker to 3.38.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-45716 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-45716 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2026-45716. 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-2026-45716 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-45716 across npm dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.