Vikunja has cross-tenant IDOR in kanban move-task endpoint via unauthorized body task_idGHSA-5pg6-m483-7vrg

Summary

The kanban endpoint POST /api/v1/projects/{project}/views/{view}/buckets/{bucket}/tasks moves a task into a bucket. The task is identified by task_id in the request body. The endpoint's authorization check (TaskBucket.CanUpdate) only verifies that the caller may update the project/view/bucket named in the URL — it never checks any permission on task_id.

Any authenticated user can therefore supply another user's task ID (task IDs are a global, sequential integer space) against a kanban bucket in their own project. The server loads that victim task with no authorization check, returns its full contents in the response, and — when the target bucket is a "done" bucket — writes to the victim task's row.

This is the same vulnerability class Vikunja has already remediated for task relations (CVE-2026-33676), task attachments (CVE-2026-33678), task comments (CVE-2026-33313) and CalDAV task read (CVE-2026-35598). TaskBucket is the task-child operation that was missed.

Root cause

1. task_id is body-controlled and never permission-checked

pkg/models/kanban_task_bucket.go:32:

type TaskBucket struct {
    BucketID      int64 `... json:"bucket_id" param:"bucket"`
    TaskID        int64 `... json:"task_id"`              // body-bound only — no param tag
    ProjectViewID int64 `... json:"project_view_id" param:"view"`
    ProjectID     int64 `xorm:"-" json:"-" param:"project"`
    ...
}

The web handler UpdateWeb (pkg/web/handler/update.go) populates the struct via ctx.Bind, which binds both URL path params (param: tags) and the JSON body. BucketID, ProjectViewID, ProjectID come from the trusted URL; TaskID comes entirely from the attacker-controlled body.

2. CanUpdate authorizes the URL, not the task

pkg/models/kanban_task_bucket.go:52:

func (b *TaskBucket) CanUpdate(s *xorm.Session, a web.Auth) (bool, error) {
    bucket := Bucket{ID: b.BucketID, ProjectID: b.ProjectID, ProjectViewID: b.ProjectViewID}
    return bucket.canDoBucket(s, a)
}

canDoBucket (pkg/models/kanban_permissions.go:46) resolves the bucket/view and ends in Project{ID: pv.ProjectID}.CanUpdate(s, a) — a permission check on the project from the URL. b.TaskID is never referenced. The attacker owns that project, so the check passes.

3. The task is loaded and mutated with no authorization

updateTaskBucket (pkg/models/kanban_task_bucket.go:119):

task := &Task{ID: b.TaskID}
err = task.ReadOne(s, a)            // loads ANY task by ID — no permission check

Task.ReadOne (pkg/models/tasks.go:1967) calls GetTaskByIDSimple + addMoreInfoToTasks; it performs no authorization (authorization normally lives in the separate Task.CanRead, which this internal call path bypasses).

• Read: the fully populated victim task is assigned to b.Task (line 227) and returned by the Update handler in the response "task" field.

• Write: if the target bucket is the view's done bucket (view.DoneBucketID == b.BucketID && !task.Done, line 141), the handler sets task.Done = true and persists it to the victim's task row:

  _, err = s.Where("id = ?", task.ID).
      Cols("done", "due_date", "start_date", "end_date", "done_at").
      Update(task)
  

Proof of Concept

The attacker is any normal authenticated user. They first create their own kanban project/view/bucket (free for every user), then:

POST /api/v1/projects/{ATTACKER_PROJECT}/views/{ATTACKER_VIEW}/buckets/{ATTACKER_BUCKET}/tasks HTTP/1.1
Host: TARGET
Authorization: Bearer {ATTACKER_JWT}
Content-Type: application/json

{"task_id": {VICTIM_TASK_ID}}

The 200 response body contains the victim task in full under "task" — title, description, dates, assignees, labels, attachment list, reactions. Task IDs are a global sequential counter, so iterating task_id enumerates every task on the instance.

If ATTACKER_BUCKET is the done bucket of ATTACKER_VIEW, the same request also flips the victim task to done (done = true, done_at set).

Impact

Any authenticated low-privilege user can:

• Read any task on the instance by sequential ID, across every other user, project and organization — a full cross-tenant information disclosure of task titles, descriptions, assignees, labels and attachment metadata.
• Modify any task's done state, marking arbitrary victims' tasks done (or clearing it) and altering done_at.

Vikunja's permission model is built specifically to isolate projects between users; this endpoint defeats that isolation. It is the same impact and class that warranted CVEs for task relations, attachments and comments.

Suggested fix

In TaskBucket.CanUpdate, after the bucket/project check, also verify the caller's permission on the body-supplied task — mirroring the remediation already applied to task relations and attachments:

task := &Task{ID: b.TaskID}
canUpdateTask, err := task.CanUpdate(s, a)
if err != nil || !canUpdateTask {
    return false, err
}

(Use CanRead if moving a readable-but-not-writable task into a bucket is intended; CanUpdate is the safer default since the operation can change the task's done state.)

References

• CWE-639 Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
• CWE-284 Improper Access Control
• OWASP A01:2021 Broken Access Control
• CVE-2026-33676, CVE-2026-33678, CVE-2026-33313, CVE-2026-35598 — the same missing-authorization-on-task-child class, already remediated; this report is the un-remediated TaskBucket sibling.

Additional notes

• The v2 API is affected too. The same endpoint is exposed under /api/v2/..., and both versions route through the shared model TaskBucket.CanUpdate / updateTaskBucket in pkg/models/kanban_task_bucket.go. A model-level fix closes v1 and v2 simultaneously; the regression test should assert both.

• Two fix altitudes. The minimal fix checks the body-supplied task_id in TaskBucket.CanUpdate (task.CanUpdate/CanRead). A broader fix makes Task.ReadOne itself permission-aware, which also hardens other internal call paths that rely on it — higher blast radius, weigh accordingly.

• Side effects of the cross-tenant write confirmed across reports: flipping done rewrites done_at/due_date/start_date/end_date, inserts a task_buckets row, propagates done-state to other kanban views with a done bucket in the victim's project, and triggers updateDone rescheduling for repeating tasks.