# CVE-2026-59093: Weaviate < 1.38.0 - Privilege Escalation via Unchecked Permissions in RBAC Role Assignment

> A user with role assignment permissions can escalate to full administrative control by assigning high-privilege roles to themselves due to missing permission checks.

- **Severity:** High 8.7 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **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:** 2 Jul 2026
- **Updated:** 14 Jul 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-667j-56pf-pq9c, MINI-2238-6m3j-32hv, MINI-39gg-8777-m7fq, MINI-3j8h-rv3p-x2c2, MINI-4x69-56p4-jrhf, MINI-6jh2-f3hg-w8mx, MINI-8whf-v47j-36wq, MINI-9hcw-v7qg-444c, MINI-9jc8-x4vw-3jcv, MINI-gv9w-52vg-gm4w, MINI-hgh9-mm3r-g752, MINI-hpvj-m4m8-2g35, MINI-mpp5-vf74-f9f7, MINI-p36f-59r9-vcxw, MINI-qq2f-m3j9-3pxw, MINI-w57p-76p2-v9vq, MINI-wrc7-gvx3-m2pm

## What is CVE-2026-59093?

CVE-2026-59093 is a high-severity vulnerability in weaviate, published on 2 Jul 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Weaviate before 1.38.0 does not verify that a principal performing an RBAC role assignment holds the permissions granted by the assigned role. The assignRoleToUser and assignRoleToGroup handlers (POST /authz/users/{id}/assign and /authz/groups/{id}/assign) authorize only that the caller may assign roles to the target user or group, not the permissions contained in the assigned roles, unlike role creation which enforces that a user can only create roles with permissions less than or equal to its own. A user holding only the delegated assign_and_revoke_users or assign_and_revoke_groups permission can assign the built-in admin role, or any high-privilege custom role, to itself or others, escalating to full administrative control of the database.

Weakness: CWE-266 (Incorrect Privilege Assignment)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-59093?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Weaviate Weaviate.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-59093?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-59093 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-59093 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-59093 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in weaviate

- [CVE-2023-38976](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-38976/): Weaviate denial of service vulnerability (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2025-67818](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-67818/): Weaviate OSS has a Path Traversal Vulnerability via Backup ZipSlip (high 7.2)
- [CVE-2025-67819](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-67819/): Weaviate OSS has path traversal vulnerability via the Shard Movement API (medium 4.9)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-59093 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-59093 is a high-severity vulnerability in weaviate, published on 2 Jul 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-59093 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: weaviate. 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-2026-59093/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-59093/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-59093
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-59093
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-59093

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-59093/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.