CVE-2026-97685 LimeSurvey Community Edition 7.3.0 - Cross-survey object authorization bypass in REST survey patch operations
Authenticated users can modify questions and answers in other users' surveys by bypassing authorization checks in the REST API.
- 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-2026-97685?
CVE-2026-97685 is a high-severity missing authorization vulnerability in LimeSurvey, published on 29 Sep 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
An authenticated LimeSurvey Community Edition 7.3.0 user allowed to create surveys can use their own survey as an authorized context while supplying question or answer identifiers belonging to another user's survey. The REST survey-patching endpoint checks the attacker's permission against the survey ID in the request URL, but the vulnerable persistence operations resolve the target object independently by its global qid or aid and never verify that it belongs to that authorized survey.
Weakness: CWE-639
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-97685?
How do I fix CVE-2026-97685?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-97685 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Upgrade, and check permissions on every request on the server, not only in the interface. More about Missing authorization.
Is CVE-2026-97685 being exploited?
It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-97685 exists.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-c7fj-2fxp-jqpf.