Raw vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:H/SI:H/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:XCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2026-72774 is a high-severity Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key (CWE-639) vulnerability in N8N N8N. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 37th 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-24 (Access Control Decisions) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-56100
Vulnerability Data
n8n before 1.123.67, 2.31.5, and 2.32.1 contains a credential authorization bypass in the HTTP Request node. An authenticated member with edit access to a shared workflow can reference another user's credential while specifying the credential type via an expression. Because…
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the pre-execution permission check compares the unresolved expression instead of the resolved credential type, the ownership check is skipped and the credential is loaded at execution time, allowing the member to use or exfiltrate a credential they were not granted. Exploitation requires knowing the target credential's identifier.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Enforcing approved authorizations on every access request structurally stops a user-controlled key from reaching another user's data.
Requiring explicit access-control decisions on each request blocks unauthorized key-driven access.
Least-privilege restrictions limit the scope of data reachable even if a key check is 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.
Enforcing authorization policy and least privilege directly blocks user-controlled key tampering that bypasses access checks.
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.
A.5.15 directly requires defining and implementing access control rules (including authorization, need-to-know, role-based restrictions, formal requests, and consistency with classification) that stop one user from reaching another's data via a tampered key; the bounded remainder is dynamic or application-specific authorization logic (cross-referenced to 8.26) that may still allow bypass if those downstream rules are flawed.
Security testing can detect missing authorization checks but does not prevent the weakness in production.
Information access restriction explicitly enforces that users may only retrieve data they are authorized to see, directly addressing user-controlled key bypass.
Managing access rights includes ensuring users can only access their own records and not bypass authorization by altering identifiers.
Secure coding practices reduce the likelihood of missing authorization checks but do not guarantee their presence at runtime.