Incorrect authorization in countly-server
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- None
- Impact type
- Security bypass
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- High · Low · None
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-863.
Summary
An authorization bypass vulnerability exists in the Countly Server DBViewer due to flawed sub-pipeline detection in the aggregation stage sanitizer. The /o/db aggregation endpoint parses user-controlled aggregation JSON and passes it through a stage sanitizer that determines whether a nested array is a sub-pipeline by checking if every element contains a key present in a hardcoded KNOWN_STAGE_OPERATORS set. If any element contains an unrecognized stage key, such as the undocumented MongoDB-internal $_internalInhibitOptimization, the sanitizer misclassifies the entire branch as a generic array and skips stage-level stripping for all sibling stages. This allows a non-admin user with DBViewer read permission to inject forbidden operators like $lookup inside $facet sub-pipelines, performing cross-collection joins into restricted collections. This leads to unauthorized read access to sensitive data including password-reset tokens (prid), enabling account takeover.
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
Remediation
- Fix · CNA countly-server (Countly) Fixed in 25.03.53-LTS
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-87803
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-3m7r-f729-ggmf
References
More Countly vulnerabilities
- TI-2026-75341 Stored XSS in countly-server feedback upload exposes global admin session CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.0
- TI-2026-75340 Unauthenticated denial of service in countly-server image routes CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-75338 Path traversal in countly-server exposes arbitrary server files CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-75339 Path traversal in countly-server lets users delete files CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.1
Sources
- CVE-2026-87803 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-87803 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-3m7r-f729-ggmf · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
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