# CVE-2026-23526: CVAT vulnerable to privilege escalation of users with staff status


- **Severity:** High 8.5 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 21 Jan 2026
- **Updated:** 26 Feb 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-7pvv-w55f-qmw7

## What is CVE-2026-23526?

CVE-2026-23526 is a high-severity vulnerability in cvat-ai cvat, published on 21 Jan 2026. 

### Official description

CVAT is an open source interactive video and image annotation tool for computer vision. In versions 1.0.0 through 2.54.0, users that have the staff status may freely change their permissions, including giving themselves superuser status and joining the admin group, which gives them full access to the data in the CVAT instance. Version 2.55.0 fixes the issue. As a workaround, review the list of users with staff status and revoke it from any users that are not expected to have superuser privileges.

Weakness: CWE-267 (Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23526?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Cvat Computer Vision Annotation Tool.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-23526?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-23526 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-23526 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23526 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in cvat-ai cvat

- [CVE-2025-23045](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-23045/): CVAT allows remote code execution via tracker Nuclio functions (high 8.7)
- [CVE-2026-23516](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-23516/): CVAT vulnerable to XSS via skeleton SVG images (high 8.6)
- [CVE-2022-31188](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-31188/): Server-Side Request Forgery Vulnerability in Computer Vision Annotation Tool (CVAT) (high 8.6)
- [CVE-2024-37164](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-37164/): CVAT SSRF via custom cloud storage endpoints (high 7.1)
- [CVE-2024-37306](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-37306/): CVAT's export and backup-related API endpoints are susceptible to CSRF (high 7.1)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-23526 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-23526 is a high-severity vulnerability in cvat-ai cvat, published on 21 Jan 2026. 
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23526 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: cvat-ai cvat. 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-2026-23526/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-23526/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-23526
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-23526
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-23526

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-23526/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.