GHSA-99vm-5v2h-h6r6 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.4) CWE-863 vulnerability in directus. A fix is available for directus — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Directus allows updates to non-allowed fields due to overlapping policies
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.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-99vm-5v2h-h6r6.
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
GHSA-99vm-5v2h-h6r6 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
Directus is a real-time API and App dashboard for managing SQL database content. In affected versions if there are two overlapping policies for the update action that allow access to different fields, instead of correctly checking access permissions against the item they apply for the user is allowed to update the superset of fields allowed by any of the policies. E.g. have one policy allowing update access to field_a if the id == 1 and one policy allowing update access to field_b if the id == 2. The user with both these policies is allowed to update both field_a and field_b for the items with ids 1 and 2. Before v11, if a user was allowed to update an item they were allowed to update the fields that the single permission, that applied to that item, listed. With overlapping permissions this isn't as clear cut anymore and the union of fields might not be the fields the user is allowed to update for that specific item. The solution that this PR introduces is to evaluate the permissions for each field that the user tries to update in the validateItemAccess DB query, instead of only verifying access to the item as a whole. This is done by, instead of returning the actual field value, returning a flag that indicates if the user has access to that field. This uses the same case/when mechanism that is used for stripping out non permitted field that is at the core of the permissions engine. As a result, for every item that the access is validated for, the expected result is an item that has either 1 or null for all the "requested" fields instead of any of the actual field values. These results are not useful for anything other than verifying the field level access permissions. The final check in validateItemAccess can either fail if the number of items does not match the number of items the access is checked for (ie. the user does not have access to the item at all) or if not all of the passed in fields have access permissions for any of the returned items. This is a vulnerability that allows update access to unintended fields, potentially impacting the password field for user accounts. This has been addressed in version 11.1.2 and all users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | directus | ≥ 11.0.0&&< 11.1.2 | 11.1.2npm install directus@11.1.2 |
| 📦npm | @directus/api | ≥ 22.0.0&&< 23.1.0 | 23.1.0npm install @directus/api@23.1.0 |
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 11.1.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-99vm-5v2h-h6r6 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 GHSA-99vm-5v2h-h6r6 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-99vm-5v2h-h6r6. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-99vm-5v2h-h6r6 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-99vm-5v2h-h6r6 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.