# CVE-2025-27822: Privilege escalation in Masquerade

> Non-administrative users with masquerade permissions can bypass restrictions to impersonate administrators in Backdrop CMS.

- **Severity:** High 7.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 7 Mar 2025
- **Updated:** 7 Mar 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-6h54-vm3j-p486

## What is CVE-2025-27822?

CVE-2025-27822 is a high-severity vulnerability in backdropcms Masquerade, published on 7 Mar 2025. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An issue was discovered in the Masquerade module before 1.x-1.0.1 for Backdrop CMS. It allows people to temporarily switch to another user account. The module provides a "Masquerade as admin" permission to restrict people (who can masquerade) from switching to an account with administrative privileges. This permission is not always honored and may allow non-administrative users to masquerade as an administrator. This vulnerability is mitigated by the fact that an attacker must have a role with the "Masquerade as user" permission.

Weakness: CWE-863 (Incorrect Authorization)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-27822?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-27822?

No fix has been published for CVE-2025-27822 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2025-27822 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-27822 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-27822 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-27822 is a high-severity vulnerability in backdropcms Masquerade, published on 7 Mar 2025. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-27822 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: backdropcms Masquerade. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-27822/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-27822/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-27822
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-27822
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-27822

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-27822/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.