Directus: Open Redirect via Parser Bypass in OAuth2/SAML Authentication FlowGHSA-cf45-hxwj-4cfj
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.
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
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
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 |
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 11.16.1 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
Stop reflecting attacker-controlled destinations: resolve every redirect target against an allowlist of paths or hosts you own, prefer a server-side key over a full URL in the request, and reject absolute URLs entirely where the flow only ever needs a relative one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-cf45-hxwj-4cfj in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.