Authelia has an Edge Case Access Control Rule Mismatch
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- High
- Attack requirements
- Present
- Impact type
- Security bypass
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- Low · None · None
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and GitHub. Impact type from CWE-863.
Summary
Authelia is an open-source authentication and authorization server providing two-factor authentication and single sign-on (SSO) for applications via a web portal. In versions 4.36.0 through 4.39.19, due to lack of canonicalization of domains in very specific edge cases, an access control rule may be skipped when it should match a request. The specific conditions that could lead to a security issue for vulnerability are: 1. The specific target resource of the attack must be using the forwarded authorization integration; 2. The requested domain must have two additional segments compared to a session domain i.e. `a.b.example.com` is requested, but the session domain is `example.com`; 3. There access control rules must specify two separate rules which both contain inexact domain matches such as `*.b.example.com` and `*.example.com` i.e. wildcards, username matches, group matches; 4. The rules must be in order of most specific domain to least specific domain; 5. The second rule must be more permissive than the first rule; 6. The attacker must specifically request a URL for the more specific domain, with the second part containing one or more capitalized letters i.e. `https://a.B.example.com` and no other segment with capitalized letters; 7. The integration used must not be the Envoy ExtAuthz integration; and 8. The proxy must not canonicalize the requested host name in the relevant header before sending it to the relevant authorization endpoint. The kind of configuration used to produce this issue and result in a `bypass` rule being matched has long been highly discouraged. Essentially hosts which should be bypassed entirely should not be secured by having the proxy check them with the authorization handlers. Upgrade to 4.39.20 to receive a patch.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| authelia | authelia | 4.36.0 to before 4.39.20 | 4.39.20 | Patch available | CNA |
| — | github.com/authelia/authelia/v4 (Go) | 4.36.0 to before 4.39.20 | 4.39.20 | Patch available | GHSA-j748-h363-wqj8 |
- authelia Vendorauthelia Affected 4.36.0 to before 4.39.20 Fixed in 4.39.20 Patch available CNA
- github.com/authelia/authelia/v4 (Go) Vendor— Affected 4.36.0 to before 4.39.20 Fixed in 4.39.20 Patch available GHSA-j748-h363-wqj8
Remediation
- Fix · CNA authelia (authelia) Fixed in 4.39.20
- Fix · GHSA-j748-h363-wqj8 github.com/authelia/authelia/v4 (Go) Fixed in 4.39.20 Advisory →
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-48794
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-j748-h363-wqj8
References
More authelia vulnerabilities
- TI-2021-12305 Authentication bypassed with malformed request URI CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 10.0
- TI-2021-10169 Authelia allows open redirects on the logout endpoint CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.7
- TI-2026-34791 Authelia Missing Username Canonicalization in Basic Auth (LDAP) CVSS 4.0LOW 2.9
- TI-2025-18523 Regulation applies separately to Username-based logins to Email-based logins in authelia CVSS 4.0LOW 2.3
- TI-2026-25918 Authelia: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation Leads to Potential Cross-site Scripting CVSS 4.0LOW 0.5
Sources
- CVE-2026-48794 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-48794 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-j748-h363-wqj8 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
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