GHSA-v859-c572-qh5p is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) CWE-193 vulnerability in github.com/zitadel/zitadel. A fix is available for github.com/zitadel/zitadel — see the affected versions and patch details below.
ZITADEL: Improper Role Revocation on Granted Projects during Multiple Role Deletions
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-v859-c572-qh5p.
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-v859-c572-qh5p 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 377,166 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
github.com/zitadel/zitadelReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
A bug in how ZITADEL updates permissions when multiple project roles are deleted at the same time can cause some user permissions to be missed. This issue specifically affects User Grants on Granted Projects (projects shared between different organizations), potentially allowing users to keep access rights that were supposed to be completely removed.
Impact
When an organization shares a project with another organization (a Project Grant), administrators can assign specific roles to users via a User Grant. If multiple roles are deleted from that project at the same time, a background process runs to strip those roles from the assigned users.
Because of an error in how ZITADEL loops through a user's list of roles during this specific cross-organization cleanup, deleting two or more roles at once might cause the system to accidentally skip over some of them.
Scope Note: This vulnerability only affects User Grants on Granted Projects. Direct project roles and global organization roles are not impacted.
The risk depends entirely on what the skipped role allowed the user to do—if it was an administrative or high-privilege role, the user could potentially retain those elevated permissions within that granted project even after the role was officially deleted.
Affected Versions
- 4.x:
4.0.0through4.15.3(including RC versions) - 3.x:
3.0.0through3.4.12(including RC versions)
Note: The 3.x release channel has reached End-of-Life (EOL) for security updates and will not receive a backported patch.
Patches & Resolution
This issue has been fully resolved in the latest releases.
The update fixes the role-removal logic to ensure no roles are skipped. Furthermore, this patch includes an automatic database migration. When you update, the system will automatically scan your database, find any user permissions on granted projects that may have been accidentally left behind by this bug, and correct them.
Workarounds
There are no configuration workarounds. Upgrading to a patched version is the recommended solution and only way to trigger the automatic cleanup migration. If you cannot upgrade immediately, we recommend manually reviewing user permissions specifically for your Granted Projects where multiple roles were recently deleted.
Questions
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please reach out to us at [email protected].
Credits
Thanks to AyushParkara for reporting this vulnerability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/zitadel/zitadel | all versions | 4.16.0go get github.com/zitadel/zitadel@v4.16.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/zitadel/zitadel, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/zitadel/zitadel to 4.16.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-v859-c572-qh5p 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-v859-c572-qh5p can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-v859-c572-qh5p. 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-v859-c572-qh5p in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-v859-c572-qh5p across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.