GHSA-cf45-hxwj-4cfj — directus
MEDIUMGHSA-cf45-hxwj-4cfj is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) CWE-184 vulnerability in directus. A fix is available for directus — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Directus: Open Redirect via Parser Bypass in OAuth2/SAML Authentication Flow
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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 GHSA-cf45-hxwj-4cfj.
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-cf45-hxwj-4cfj 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 379,145 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.
directusnpmDescription
Summary
An open redirect vulnerability exists in the login redirection logic. The isLoginRedirectAllowed function fails to correctly identify certain malformed URLs as external, allowing attackers to bypass redirect allow-list validation and redirect users to arbitrary external domains upon successful authentication.
Details
A parser differential exists between the server-side URL validation logic and how modern browsers interpret URL path segments containing backslashes. Specifically, certain URL patterns are incorrectly classified as safe relative paths by the server, but are normalized by browsers into external domain references.
This is particularly impactful in SSO authentication flows (e.g., OAuth2 providers), where an attacker can craft a login URL that redirects the victim to an attacker-controlled site immediately after successful authentication, without any visible indication during the login process.
Impact
- Phishing: Users may be silently redirected to attacker-controlled sites impersonating legitimate services after authenticating.
- Credential/token theft: The redirect can be chained to capture OAuth tokens or authorization codes.
- Trust erosion: Users lose confidence in the application after being redirected to unexpected domains post-login.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | directus | all versions | 11.16.1npm install directus@11.16.1 |
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 11.16.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-cf45-hxwj-4cfj 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-cf45-hxwj-4cfj can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-cf45-hxwj-4cfj. 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-cf45-hxwj-4cfj in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-cf45-hxwj-4cfj across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.