CVE-2026-43978 wger: Privilege escalation via trainer-login session chaining allows gym trainers to impersonate gym managers
Gym trainers can escalate privileges to manager roles by chaining trainer-login calls, gaining full administrative access to member data and gym configurations.
- 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-2026-43978?
CVE-2026-43978 is a high-severity vulnerability in wger-project wger, published on 16 Jul 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
wger is a free, open-source workout and fitness manager. In versions prior to 2.6, a gym trainer can escalate their session to any higher-privileged account (gym manager, general manager) by chaining two calls to the trainer-login endpoint. Once a trainer performs a legitimate switch into a low-privileged user, the session flag trainer.identity is set and this flag alone bypasses the permission check on all subsequent trainer-login calls. This grants full gym administration capabilities including viewing all member data, modifying contracts, managing gym configuration, and accessing other trainers' and managers' personal information. This issue has been fixed in version 2.6.
Weakness: CWE-269
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-43978?
3 open source packages ship an affected version, including wger.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
wger PyPI | All versions to 2.5 | None |
wger PyPI | All versions to 2.5 | None |
wger PyPI | All versions to 2.5 | None |
How do I fix CVE-2026-43978?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-43978 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-43978 being exploited?
It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-43978 exists.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-9qpr-vc49-hqg2, PYSEC-2026-3420.