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TI-2026-70311 Aliases GHSA-3hc7-r24j-rpwc

Cross-project task disclosure through subtask expansion in Vikunja

Priority LOW 38CWE-200Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
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Privileges required
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User interaction
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Attack complexity
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Impact type
Information disclosure, Security bypass
Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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Fix status
Fixed

No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from GitHub. Impact type from CWE-200 and CWE-862.

Summary

Vikunja's task listing endpoint with subtask expansion returns linked subtasks without checking whether the caller can access the project they belong to. A user with read-only access to one project can read full task content from private projects when those tasks are linked as subtasks under a task the user can see, including recursively nested subtasks. This is a missing authorization check that exposes sensitive information (CWE-200, CWE-862). Affected versions are from 0 before 2.6.0 of code.vikunja.io/api.

Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-10-29

Description from the GitHub advisory

### Summary Vikunja lets a task in one project have a subtask that lives in a different project. When listing a project's tasks, an option pulls in those subtasks (?expand%5B%5D=subtasks). The main listing is correctly filtered to the projects the caller can access, but the subtask expansion is not: it returns the linked subtasks regardless of whether the caller has any access to the project they belong to. So a member with read-only access to one project can read the full content of tasks in other, private projects, any task that is a (recursive) subtask of a task the member is allowed to see. ### Details Subtasks can cross project boundaries; a task in an accessible project can be linked as the parent of a subtask that lives in a private project. Creating that link requires access to both tasks, so the link itself is set up legitimately by someone who has it. The problem is what happens afterwards, on read. When a task list is requested with subtask expansion, the server takes the tasks the caller is allowed to see and walks their subtask relations recursively to fetch the linked tasks. That fetch doesn't apply the access-control filter the main listing use, it returns every linked task by ID, with no check on whether the caller can access the project it belongs to. Because the walk is recursive, it also returns the entire subtree beneath each linked task. The effect is a cross-project read. A read-only member of project P who has no access at all to a private project Q can retrieve Q's tasks, full objects, including title, description, dates, assignees, labels, and attachment metadata, as long as some task in Q is linked as a subtask under a task in P. The links persist after access changes, so a former collaborator who has been removed from Q, but still has read access to P, keeps this read channel into Q. The fix is to apply the same project-access filter to the expanded subtasks that the main listing already applies, so only subtasks in projects the caller can access are returned. ### PoC Setup: the attacker has read-only access to project P. A task in P has a subtask that lives in a private project Q the attacker cannot access (a normal cross-project subtask, created earlier by someone with access to both). 1. List P's tasks with subtask expansion: ``` GET /api/v1/projects/<P>/views/<view>/tasks?expand%5B%5D=subtasks ``` 2. The response includes the task from Q as a full object, title, description, dates, assignees, labels, attachment metadata, even though the attacker has no access to Q. Because the expansion is recursive, the entire subtree of subtasks beneath it is returned too. The same works against the account-wide listing: ``` GET /api/v1/tasks?expand%5B%5D=subtasks ``` ### Impact Cross-project confidentiality break. A user with read access to one project can read the full content of tasks in other projects they were never granted access to, whenever those tasks are linked as subtasks (directly or recursively) under a task they can see. The disclosure is read-only, no modification, but it exposes arbitrary private task data, and it survives access revocation, since the underlying links remain after a collaborator is removed. Exploitation depends on a suitable cross-project subtask link already existing; the attacker cannot create one to a project they can't access.

Why it matters now

Fix Fixed code.vikunja.io/api (Go): 2.6.0

SSVC decision points

Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
—code.vikunja.io/api (Go)before 2.6.02.6.0Patch availableGHSA-3hc7-r24j-rpwc
  • code.vikunja.io/api (Go) Vendor— Affected before 2.6.0 Fixed in 2.6.0 Patch available GHSA-3hc7-r24j-rpwc

Remediation

Upgrade code.vikunja.io/api to version 2.6.0, which applies the project-access filter to expanded subtasks.

Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-10-29

  • Fix · GHSA-3hc7-r24j-rpwc code.vikunja.io/api (Go) Fixed in 2.6.0 Advisory →

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-10 Threatist record created from GHSA-3hc7-r24j-rpwc

References

Sources

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