CVE-2026-32267
Published: 16 March 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-32267 is a critical-severity Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) vulnerability in Craftcms Craft Cms. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 12.0th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Directly addresses the improper access control (CWE-863) in UsersController->actionImpersonateWithToken that enables unauthorized privilege escalation.
Mandates timely identification, reporting, and patching of the specific flaw fixed in Craft CMS versions 4.17.6 and 5.9.12.
Enforces least privilege to restrict low-privilege or unauthenticated users from accessing admin-level impersonation functions.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
CVE describes unauthenticated/low-priv remote abuse of an access-control flaw (impersonate token) in a public-facing CMS to obtain full admin rights; this directly matches T1190 (initial foothold via public app) and T1068 (resulting privilege escalation).
NVD Description
Craft CMS is a content management system (CMS). From version 4.0.0-RC1 to before version 4.17.6 and from version 5.0.0-RC1 to before version 5.9.12, a low-privilege user (or an unauthenticated user who has been sent a shared URL) can escalate their…
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privileges to admin by abusing UsersController->actionImpersonateWithToken. This issue has been patched in versions 4.17.6 and 5.9.12.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2026-32267 is a privilege escalation vulnerability in Craft CMS, a content management system. It affects versions from 4.0.0-RC1 up to but not including 4.17.6, and from 5.0.0-RC1 up to but not including 5.9.12. The flaw resides in the UsersController->actionImpersonateWithToken function, which allows improper access control (CWE-863). The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating critical severity with network accessibility and no prerequisites for exploitation.
An attacker with low privileges, or even an unauthenticated user provided with a shared URL, can exploit this issue to escalate their access to administrator level. By abusing the impersonation token mechanism, the attacker gains full admin privileges, potentially enabling unauthorized data access, modification, or deletion across the CMS instance.
Craft CMS has addressed the vulnerability in versions 4.17.6 and 5.9.12, as detailed in the project's security advisory (GHSA-cc7p-2j3x-x7xf) and corresponding commit (6301e217c5f15617d939c432cb770db50af14b33). Security practitioners should prioritize upgrading affected installations to these patched releases to mitigate the risk.
Details
- CWE(s)