# GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5: pyLoad: Api.set_user_permission never invalidates the target's session > Admins revoking user permissions via API fail to invalidate sessions, allowing demoted users to retain elevated privileges for up to 31 days. - **Severity:** Not scored - **Exploited in the wild:** Not known - **Login needed:** An administrator - **Attackable:** Over the internet - **Victim action needed:** Not needed - **Fix available:** No - **Published:** 9 Oct 2026 ## What is GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5? GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5 is a missing authorization vulnerability in pyload-ng, published on 9 Oct 2026. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim. ### Official description ### Summary An admin who revokes or downgrades a non-admin user's permissions through pyLoad's own documented `/api/` RPC surface — e.g. `POST /api/set_user_permission` (or its legacy alias `/api/setUserPermission`) — updates the target's database row but never invalidates that user's existing Flask cookie session. The demoted user keeps their pre-revocation `role`/`permission` bits on every subsequent WebUI page load and every subsequent `/api/` call made with that cookie, for up to the default `session_lifetime` of ~31 days, or until they voluntarily log out. No action by the demoted user is required beyond already being logged in at the time of revocation. ### Details The vulnerable method, verbatim, at `src/pyload/core/api/__init__.py:1652-1656`: ``` @legacy("setUserPermission") @post def set_user_permission(self, user: str, permission: int, role: int) -> None: self.pyload.db.set_permission(user, permission) self.pyload.db.set_role(user, role) ``` It carries no `@permission(...)` decorator and its body never calls `clear_all_user_sessions` or any other session-invalidation routine. The **only** call site in the entire codebase that pairs a permission/role change with `clear_all_user_sessions` is the WebUI's `update_users()` route, `src/pyload/webui/app/blueprints/json_blueprint.py:442-444`: ``` api.set_user_permission(name, data["permission"], data["role"]) if was_changed: clear_all_user_sessions(name) ``` A repo-wide grep for `set_user_permission|setUserPermission` returns exactly 3 hits: the `@legacy` alias registration (`core/api/__init__.py:1652`), the method definition itself (`:1654`), and this one call site (`json_blueprint.py:442`). No other caller exists. pyLoad's own public RPC dispatcher reaches `Api.set_user_permission` directly, bypassing `json_blueprint.py` entirely. `src/pyload/webui/app/blueprints/api_blueprint.py:21-26` registers `rpc(func, args="")` on `/api/` and `/api//` for `GET`/`POST`; line 68 dispatches with `response = jsonify(getattr(api, func)(**json_request_body))` — i.e. it invokes any method on the `Api` object by name, including `set_user_permission` (also reachable via form/multipart bodies at `:72`/`:77`). The only authorization gate before that dispatch, at `api_blueprint.py:50`, is: ``` if not api.is_authorized(func, {"role": user_info["role"], "permission": user_info["permission"]}): ``` `is_authorized` (`core/api/__init__.py:1419-1432`) returns `True` outright when the **caller's** role is `Role.ADMIN`; otherwise it requires `func_name in perm_map`. `set_user_permission` has no `@permission` decorator, so it is absent from `perm_map` (the module comment at `core/api/__init__.py:37` states "unlisted functions are for admins only"). This gate concerns only the caller's own authorization — it says nothing about, and never touches, the **target** user's existing session. ### The stale session survives The demoted user's session was populated once, at login, and is never refreshed: - `helpers.py:170,179,183-185` — `parse_permissions(session)` derives the caller's effective admin/permission bits from `session.get("role")` and `session.get("perms")`. - These values are written once by `set_session()` (`helpers.py:223-234`), called only from `app_blueprint.py:88` (login) and `:100` (autologin). A repo-wide grep for `before_request` inside `src/pyload/` returns nothing — no hook anywhere refreshes a live session from the database. - `is_authenticated(session)` (`helpers.py:261-266`) is exactly: ``` user = session.get("name") authenticated = session.get("authenticated", False) return authenticated and api.user_exists(user) ``` It re-validates only that the username still exists — never that the session's cached `role`/`perms` still match the current database values. - Inside `apikey_auth` (`helpers.py:393-404`), when no `X-API-Key` header is supplied, `flask.g.user_info` is built as `{"id": s["id"], "name": s["name"], "role": s["role"], "permission": s["perms"]}` — straight from the same stale, login-time-cached session fields. This is exactly the `user_info` that `api_blueprint.py:50` feeds into `is_authorized()` for every `/api/` call made over a cookie session. The exposure window is bounded, not indefinite: `default.cfg:47` sets `session_lifetime = 44640` (minutes, ≈31 days), wired into `PERMANENT_SESSION_LIFETIME` at `webui/app/__init__.py:130-131`, and `SESSION_REFRESH_EACH_REQUEST = False` at `:128` means the window is a hard ~31 days from login, not extended by continued activity. ## Attack Sequence Starting privilege: an already-authenticated non-admin user, plus an admin who legitimately uses pyLoad's own documented API instead of the WebUI page. 1. Victim user logs in normally, obtains a Flask session cookie (`A`) with `role`/`perms` reflecting their current (elevated) permissions. 2. Admin revokes or downgrades the victim's permissions via `POST /api/set_user_permission` (or legacy `POST /api/setUserPermission`) with the victim's username and the new, lower `permission`/`role` values — using `curl`, a script, or any RPC client, rather than the WebUI's "Manage Users" HTML page. `Api.set_user_permission` updates `pyload.db.set_permission` / `pyload.db.set_role` and returns; no session anywhere is touched. 3. Using cookie `A` (never invalidated), the victim loads any WebUI admin-gated page, or calls any `/api/` endpoint gated only on role/permission. `apikey_auth`'s cookie branch rebuilds `user_info` from the stale session fields (`role`/`perms` as of step 1), `is_authorized()` / `parse_permissions()` evaluate against those stale values, and the call succeeds as if the revocation never happened. 4. This persists for up to ~31 days (default `session_lifetime`) or until the victim logs out, whichever comes first. This sequence was confirmed against a real, locally-run pyLoad instance, not just traced from source. See Section 10 for the exact commands, real HTTP status codes and response bodies, and the precondition that the admin step here used `X-API-Key` header auth rather than a cookie (explained there). ## Suggested Fix Move the `clear_all_user_sessions(name)` call into `Api.set_user_permission` itself (ideally also adopting the apikey-cache purge pattern already used in `remove_user`, `core/api/__init__.py:1626-1636`), so that every entry point — WebUI and `/api/` RPC alike — inherits session invalidation automatically, rather than requiring each caller to remember to invoke it separately. ### PoC This was executed for real against pyLoad's own code, not merely predicted from reading it. The verifier pass that produced Sections 1-9 (`ghsa/CLAIMS-pyload.md`) source-traced every claim but never ran a PoC; this section closes that gap. ### Method and preconditions - Target: `pyload/pyload` at the pinned commit `31e341fd41d2dac9fffa3683a756edc54bcdeb77` (`develop` branch), installed editable (`pip install -e ".[test]"`) into a fresh Python 3.12.3 virtualenv. No source files were modified. - Transport: Flask's in-process test client (`app.test_client()`) against the real `pyload.core.Core` / `pyload.webui.app` Flask app object, not a bound TCP server. This is the same bootstrap the project's own `tests/integration/conftest.py` fixture uses, and it exercises the identical route/view/decorator code (`api_blueprint.rpc()`, `apikey_auth`, `is_authorized()`, `parse_permissions()`, Flask-WTF CSRF protection) that a real `127.0.0.1:8000`-bound server would run. No real network socket was opened and no third-party or public host was touched, only this locally-run copy of the target's own cloned code. - Two users: `pyload`/`pyload` (pyLoad's own automatically-created default admin account) and a freshly created non-admin `victim` user with the `Perms.SETTINGS` permission bit. - Elevated-action probe: `GET /api/get_userdir` ( ## Which versions are affected by GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5? 2 open source packages ship an affected version, including pyload-ng. | Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `pyload-ng` | PyPI | From 0.5.0b3.dev98 to 0.5.0b3.dev101 | None | | `pyload-ng` | PyPI | From 0.5.0b3.dev98 to 0.5.0b3.dev101 | None | ## How do I fix GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5? No fix has been published for GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available. ## Is GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5 being exploited? There is no known exploitation of GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5 in the wild and no public exploit code. ## Fix prompt for AI coding agents ```text Check this codebase for GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5 and fix it if it is affected. What it is: GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5 is a missing authorization vulnerability in pyload-ng, published on 9 Oct 2026. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim. Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5 in the wild and no public exploit code. Affected packages and fixed versions: - pyload-ng (PyPI): affected from 0.5.0b3.dev98 up to 0.5.0b3.dev101; no fix listed - pyload-ng (PyPI): affected from 0.5.0b3.dev98 up to 0.5.0b3.dev101; no fix listed 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/GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5/index.md) ``` ## Sources - OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5 --- From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/GHSA-889w-m37p-88m5/ Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.