Organization administrator escalation via unchecked bot role
Published Jul 22, 2022 · Updated Apr 23, 2025
Improper authorization in Zulip Server 5.4 and earlier allows remote authenticated users to grant administrator privileges to owned bots. The patch shows that patch_bot_backend checked only organization-owner transitions and omitted an administrator check for other bot-role changes. Exploitation requires organization membership plus ownership of a bot or permission to create one, and yields administrator control through that bot.
Summary
What happened
Improper authorization in Zulip Server 5.4 and earlier allows remote authenticated users to grant administrator privileges to owned bots. The patch shows that patch_bot_backend checked only organization-owner transitions and omitted an administrator check for other bot-role changes. Exploitation requires organization membership plus ownership of a bot or permission to create one, and yields administrator control through that bot.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-31168
- Published
- Jul 22, 2022
- Updated
- Apr 23, 2025
- Vendor
- Zulip
- Product
- Zulip
- Classifications
- CWE-285, T1098
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jul 22, 2022CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Apr 23, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=< 5.5
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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