Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-59253

Access Control in N8N ≤ 2.28.0

Public PoCAccess Control
Published
08 July 2026
Modified
08 July 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 5.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:L/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0017 6th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-59253 is a medium-severity Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key (CWE-639) vulnerability in N8N N8N. Its CVSS base score is 5.3 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 6th 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 map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

n8n before 2.28.0 contains an improper authorization vulnerability allowing authenticated users to assign workflows to folders in other projects. Attackers can bypass project and folder authorization boundaries by supplying crafted request payloads during workflow creation, causing logical integrity violations in…

more

target project folder structures.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

Insufficient information to map techniques.
Confidence: LOW · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-45732Same product: N8N N8N
CVE-2026-42227Same product: N8N N8N
CVE-2026-65016Same product: N8N N8N
CVE-2026-59259Same product: N8N N8N
CVE-2026-33663Same product: N8N N8N
CVE-2026-33724Same product: N8N N8N
CVE-2026-54305Same product: N8N N8N
CVE-2026-27496Same product: N8N N8N
CVE-2025-68697Same product: N8N N8N
CVE-2026-56353Same product: N8N N8N

Affected Assets

n8n
n8n
≤ 2.28.0

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Enforces authorization checks on every access request, directly blocking the crafted payloads that let authenticated users assign workflows to folders outside their authorized projects.

prevent

Enforces information-flow policies between projects and folders, preventing the unauthorized cross-project workflow assignments described in the CVE.

prevent

Limits each user to the minimum privileges required, reducing the ability of an authenticated account to manipulate folder assignments in other projects even if authorization checks are bypassed.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.AA-05 full match
prevents

Enforcing authorization policy and least privilege directly blocks user-controlled key tampering that bypasses access checks.

PR.IR-01 mostly match
prevents

Logical access controls prevent unauthorized data access that results from missing authorization checks on object references.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

detects

Security testing can detect missing authorization checks but does not prevent the weakness in production.

prevents

Information access restriction explicitly enforces that users may only retrieve data they are authorized to see, directly addressing user-controlled key bypass.

prevents

Access control policy directly requires enforcement of authorization rules that prevent unauthorized access via manipulated keys.

prevents

Managing access rights includes ensuring users can only access their own records and not bypass authorization by altering identifiers.

mitigates

Privileged access rights control restricts what data each user may access, mitigating direct object reference attacks.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle includes authorization design but does not itself implement runtime access checks.

References