Owner escalation via unchecked JSON-RPC role writes
Published Jul 12, 2026 · Updated Jul 12, 2026
Improper authorization in Leantime 3.8.0 and earlier allows remote authenticated users to gain Owner access through JSON-RPC. The Users service's editUser and addUser methods accept attacker-selected role values and write or create accounts without checking the caller's authorization. Any ordinary account is sufficient; Owner access exposes all projects, clients, users, and settings and permits server-side plugin installation.
Summary
What happened
Improper authorization in Leantime 3.8.0 and earlier allows remote authenticated users to gain Owner access through JSON-RPC. The Users service's editUser and addUser methods accept attacker-selected role values and write or create accounts without checking the caller's authorization. Any ordinary account is sufficient; Owner access exposes all projects, clients, users, and settings and permits server-side plugin installation.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-15509
- Published
- Jul 12, 2026
- Updated
- Jul 12, 2026
- Vendor
- Leantime
- Product
- Leantime
- Classifications
- CWE-266, CWE-285, T1098
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jul 12, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Jul 12, 2026Record 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=3.0
- Affected versionversion=3.1
- Affected versionversion=3.2
- Affected versionversion=3.3
- Affected versionversion=3.4
- Affected versionversion=3.5
- Affected versionversion=3.6
- Affected versionversion=3.7
- Affected versionversion=3.8.0
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.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Bytium Leantime Owner escalation proof of conceptfunctional · demonstrated
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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