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praisonai-platform: Any workspace member can add arbitrary user as owner via POST /workspaces/{id}/members

Critical severity GitHub Reviewed Published May 19, 2026 in MervinPraison/PraisonAI • Updated Jun 1, 2026

Package

pip praisonai-platform (pip)

Affected versions

< 0.1.4

Patched versions

0.1.4

Description

Summary

Type: Privilege escalation / cross-tenant member injection. The POST /workspaces/{workspace_id}/members endpoint is gated only by require_workspace_member(workspace_id) (default min_role="member") and forwards the request body's user_id and role straight into MemberService.add(workspace_id, user_id, role), which has no caller-permission check. A user with the lowest workspace privilege can add any user (including a new attacker-controlled second account, or an existing account they want to grief) as owner of the workspace.
File: src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/api/routes/workspaces.py, lines 92-101; services/member_service.py, lines 26-38.
Root cause: MemberService.add validates only that role is in VALID_ROLES = {"owner", "admin", "member"} — the value, not the caller's right to assign it. The route's Depends(require_workspace_member) resolves to the default min_role="member". So a member-level token plus one POST gives the attacker an alternate identity with owner role inside the same workspace, bypassing every owner-only operation that would otherwise gate them.

Affected Code

File 1: src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/api/routes/workspaces.py, lines 92-101.

@router.post("/{workspace_id}/members", response_model=MemberResponse, status_code=status.HTTP_201_CREATED)
async def add_member(
    workspace_id: str,
    body: MemberAdd,
    user: AuthIdentity = Depends(require_workspace_member),         # <-- BUG: defaults to min_role="member"
    session: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
):
    member_svc = MemberService(session)
    member = await member_svc.add(workspace_id, body.user_id, body.role)  # <-- writes any (user, role)
    return MemberResponse.model_validate(member)

File 2: src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/services/member_service.py, lines 26-38.

async def add(
    self,
    workspace_id: str,
    user_id: str,
    role: str = "member",
) -> Member:
    """Add a user to a workspace."""
    if role not in VALID_ROLES:                                      # only validates the value
        raise ValueError(f"Invalid role: {role}. Must be one of {VALID_ROLES}")
    member = Member(workspace_id=workspace_id, user_id=user_id, role=role)
    self._session.add(member)                                        # <-- BUG: no caller-permission check
    await self._session.flush()
    return member

Why it's wrong: workspace member management is the textbook capability that must be gated on owner role. The role hierarchy is implemented (MemberService.has_role, member_service.py:80-96), the dependency-tunable min_role parameter exists (require_workspace_member(min_role), deps.py:58), but the POST .../members route uses neither. The VALID_ROLES enum check is purely cosmetic — it accepts "owner" from any caller because the route never asked whether the caller has the right to assign that role.

Exploit Chain

  1. Attacker registers two accounts (or recruits a member account on the target workspace W). Account A is an existing member of W; Account B is a fresh signup the attacker controls (any account on the platform — auth/register is open by default). State: attacker holds tokens for both A and B.
  2. Attacker authenticates as Account A and POSTs Authorization: Bearer <A_jwt> to POST /workspaces/W/members with body {"user_id": "<B_user_id>", "role": "owner"}. State: control flow enters add_member.
  3. require_workspace_member(W, A) passes (A is a member). MemberService.add(W, B, "owner") writes a new row Member(workspace_id=W, user_id=B, role="owner"). State: Account B is now a workspace-W owner.
  4. Attacker switches to Account B and acts as workspace owner — change settings, add/remove members, delete the workspace, or pivot to the companion advisories' primitives. State: attacker holds owner of any workspace they had member access to, via a fresh attacker-controlled identity that the original workspace's audit logs cannot easily attribute to A.
  5. Final state: with one member-level token plus one POST, the attacker plants an owner-role identity on any workspace they can reach. The same primitive lets the attacker invite a competitor or external-vendor account into the workspace as owner, exfiltrating the workspace's content under that competitor's name.

Security Impact

Severity: sec-critical. CVSS 9.1: network attack, low complexity, low privileges (member tier), no user interaction, scope changed (the new owner is a different security principal), high confidentiality and integrity, no availability claim.
Attacker capability: with one workspace-member token plus one POST request, the attacker grants owner-tier access to any user_id on the platform. From there, full workspace control via the Account B token, plus indirect attribution: the original workspace's audit logs see "user A added user B as owner" but the audit trail cannot tell that B is attacker-controlled.
Preconditions: praisonai-platform is deployed multi-tenant; the attacker has any membership token in the target workspace; the attacker can register or knows any other user_id on the platform.
Differential: source-inspection-verified. The asymmetry between MemberService.has_role (clearly tiered) and add_member's default min_role="member" confirms the gap. With the suggested fix below, the gate refuses the member-tier token, the elevated POST returns 403, and the second-identity owner is never created.

Suggested Fix

--- a/src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/api/routes/workspaces.py
+++ b/src/praisonai-platform/praisonai_platform/api/routes/workspaces.py
@@ -90,11 +90,15 @@
+def _require_workspace_owner(workspace_id: str, user, session):
+    return require_workspace_member(workspace_id, user, session, min_role="owner")
+
 @router.post("/{workspace_id}/members", response_model=MemberResponse, status_code=status.HTTP_201_CREATED)
 async def add_member(
     workspace_id: str,
     body: MemberAdd,
-    user: AuthIdentity = Depends(require_workspace_member),
+    user: AuthIdentity = Depends(_require_workspace_owner),
     session: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
 ):
     member_svc = MemberService(session)
+    if body.role == "owner" and not await member_svc.has_role(workspace_id, user.id, "owner"):
+        raise HTTPException(status_code=403, detail="Only owners can add other owners")
     member = await member_svc.add(workspace_id, body.user_id, body.role)

The four other workspace mutation endpoints (update_workspace, delete_workspace, update_member_role, remove_member) exhibit the same default-min-role gap and are filed as their own advisories.

References

@MervinPraison MervinPraison published to MervinPraison/PraisonAI May 19, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jun 1, 2026
Reviewed Jun 1, 2026
Last updated Jun 1, 2026

Severity

Critical

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(10th percentile)

Weaknesses

Improper Privilege Management

The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor. Learn more on MITRE.

Missing Authorization

The product does not perform an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-47413

GHSA ID

GHSA-8g2p-pqm3-fcfh
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