CVE-2018-17855 Privilege escalation in n/a
An attacker with access to a specific user's email can self-activate their account, gaining administrative privileges in Joomla.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2018-17855?
CVE-2018-17855 is a high-severity vulnerability in Joomla Joomla\!, published on 9 Oct 2018. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
An issue was discovered in Joomla! before 3.8.13. If an attacker gets access to the mail account of an user who can approve admin verifications in the registration process, he can activate himself.
Weakness: CWE-269
Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-17855?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Joomla Joomla\!.
How do I fix CVE-2018-17855?
No fix has been published for CVE-2018-17855 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2018-17855 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-17855 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Joomla Joomla\!
- CVE-2016-10033 PHPMailer Command Injection
- CVE-2023-23752 Joomla! Improper Access Control
- CVE-2026-48902 Joomla! Core - [20260518] - Transport encryption downgrade for password and username reset links
- CVE-2025-25226 [20250401] - Joomla Framework - SQL injection vulnerability in quoteNameStr method of Database package
- CVE-2022-23795 [20220303] - Core - User row are not bound to a authentication mechanism
Sources
Also known as GHSA-7gxw-9g78-6pr9.