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High

Kirby has insufficient permission checks in the language settings

  • Disclosed: 29.08.2024
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 10:22

TL;DR

This vulnerability affects all Kirby sites with enabled languages option that might have potential attackers in the group of authenticated Panel users.

If you have disabled the languages and/or api option and don't call any methods in your code that cause a write access to languages (language creation, update or deletion), your site is not affected.

Introduction

Kirby allows to restrict the permissions of specific user roles. Users of that role can only perform permitted actions.

Permissions for creating and deleting languages have already existed and could be configured, but were not enforced by Kirby's frontend or backend code.

A permission for updating existing languages has not existed before the patched versions. So disabling the languages.* wildcard permission for a role could not have prohibited updates to existing language definitions.

Impact

The missing permission checks allowed attackers with Panel access to manipulate the language definitions.

The language definitions are at the core of multi-language content in Kirby. Unauthorized modifications with malicious intent can cause significant damage, for example:

  • If the languages option was enabled but no language exists, creating the first language will switch Kirby to multi-language mode.
  • Deleting an existing language will lead to content loss of all translated content in that language. Deleting the last language will switch Kirby to single-language mode.
  • Updating a language allows to change the metadata including the language slug (used in page URLs) and language variables. It also allows to change the default language, which will cause Kirby to use the new default language's content as a fallback for non-existing translations.

Depending on the site code, the result of such actions can cause loss of site availability (e.g. error messages in the site frontend) or integrity (due to changed URLs or removed translations).

Patches

The problem has been patched in Kirby 3.6.6.6, Kirby 3.7.5.5, Kirby 3.8.4.4, Kirby 3.9.8.2, Kirby 3.10.1.1, and Kirby 4.3.1. Please update to one of these or a later version to fix the vulnerability.

In all of the mentioned releases, we have added checks for the languages.create and languages.delete permissions that ensure that users without those permissions cannot perform the respective actions. We have also added a new languages.update permission.

Credits

Thanks to Sebastian Eberlein of JUNO (@SebastianEberlein-JUNO) for reporting the identified issue.

Affected software

Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.

PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Composer package getkirby/cms < 3.6.6.6, >= 3.7.0, < 3.7.5.5, >= 3.8.0, < 3.8.4.4, >= 3.9.0, < 3.9.8.2, >= 3.10.0, < 3.10.1.1, >= 4.0.0, < 4.3.1 3.6.6.6, 3.7.5.5, 3.8.4.4, 3.9.8.2, 3.10.1.1, 4.3.1

References

CVSS score 8.1/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-863
Platform
Composer
Package
getkirby/cms
Disclosed
29.08.2024
Updated
11.10.2026 10:22

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-jm9m-rqr3-wfmh - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: getkirby/cms

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Composer package), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

All (51) in the archive
Total entries
51
First → latest
12.2020 09.2026
Without a fix
2
Exploited in attacks
0

Severity breakdown

  • Critical 1
  • High 19
  • Medium 30
  • Low 1

Disclosures per year

Severity:
  1. Kirby: File upload permissions are not checked during processing of chunk data
    High CVE-2026-71415 >= 5.0.0, < 5.5.2 5.5.2
  2. Kirby: Access to image files and limited access to JSON files outside of the site root via path traversal in the media handling
    High CVE-2026-75594 < 4.9.5, >= 5.0.0, < 5.5.2 4.9.5, 5.5.2
  3. Kirby: `pages.access` permission is not checked in the `site/find` REST API route
    High CVE-2026-54005 < 4.9.4, >= 5.0.0-alpha.1, < 5.4.4 4.9.4, 5.4.4
  4. Kirby: External Initialization of the Panel on reverse proxy setups with the `Forwarded` header
    Critical CVE-2026-54003 < 4.9.4, >= 5.0.0-alpha.1, < 5.4.4 4.9.4, 5.4.4
  5. Kirby: Cross-site scripting (XSS) from incomplete HTML/XML sanitization in `Dom::sanitize()`
    High CVE-2026-54002 < 4.9.4, >= 5.0.0-alpha.1, < 5.4.4 4.9.4, 5.4.4
  6. Kirby: Self cross-site scripting (self-XSS) in the writer field
    High CVE-2026-49276 < 4.9.4, >= 5.0.0-alpha.1, < 5.4.4 4.9.4, 5.4.4
  7. Kirby CMS vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) from links in KirbyTags and image blocks in the site frontend
    High CVE-2026-45368 < 4.9.1, >= 5.0.0, < 5.4.1 4.9.1, 5.4.1
  8. Kirby CMS has pre-authentication path traversal and PHP file inclusion during user lookup
    High CVE-2026-44177 >= 5.3.0, < 5.4.1 5.4.1
  9. Kirby CMS vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) from list field content in the site frontend
    High CVE-2026-44175 < 4.9.1, >= 5.0.0, < 5.4.1 4.9.1, 5.4.1
  10. Kirby CMS has an Arbitrary Method Call via REST API Search and Collection Query Endpoints
    High CVE-2026-44174 < 4.9.1, >= 5.0.0, < 5.4.1 4.9.1, 5.4.1
  11. Kirby CMS's read access to site, user and role information is not gated by permissions
    High CVE-2026-42069 < 4.9.0, >= 5.0.0, < 5.4.0 4.9.0, 5.4.0
  12. Kirby CMS's `pages.access/list` and `files.access/list` permissions are not consistently checked in the Panel and REST API
    High CVE-2026-42137 < 4.9.0, >= 5.0.0, < 5.4.0 4.9.0, 5.4.0
  13. Kirby is vulnerable to authorization bypass during page, file and user creation via blueprint injection
    High CVE-2026-41325 < 4.9.0, >= 5.0.0, < 5.4.0 4.9.0, 5.4.0
  14. Kirby has Server-Side Template Injection (SSTI) via double template resolution in option rendering
    High · 8.1 CVE-2026-34587 < 4.9.0, >= 5.0.0, < 5.4.0 4.9.0, 5.4.0
  15. Kirby has insufficient permission checks in the language settings this entry
    High · 8.1 CVE-2024-41964 < 3.6.6.6, >= 3.7.0, < 3.7.5.5, >= 3.8.0, < 3.8.4.4, >= 3.9.0, < 3.9.8.2, >= 3.10.0, < 3.10.1.1, >= 4.0.0, < 4.3.1 3.6.6.6, 3.7.5.5, 3.8.4.4, 3.9.8.2, 3.10.1.1, 4.3.1
  16. Field injection in the KirbyData text storage handler
    High · 7.1 CVE-2023-38488 < 3.5.8.3, >= 3.6.0, < 3.6.6.3, >= 3.7.0, < 3.7.5.2, >= 3.8.0, < 3.8.4.1, >= 3.9.0, < 3.9.6 3.5.8.3, 3.6.6.3, 3.7.5.2, 3.8.4.1, 3.9.6
  17. Insufficient Session Expiration after a password change
    High · 7.3 CVE-2023-38489 < 3.5.8.3, >= 3.6.0, < 3.6.6.3, >= 3.7.0, < 3.7.5.2, >= 3.8.0, < 3.8.4.1, >= 3.9.0, < 3.9.6 3.5.8.3, 3.6.6.3, 3.7.5.2, 3.8.4.1, 3.9.6
  18. Cross-site scripting from content entered in the tags and multiselect fields
    High · 7.1 ghsa-rv3r-vqjj-8c76 >= 3.5.7, < 3.5.8.1, >= 3.6.0, < 3.6.6.1, >= 3.7.0, < 3.7.4 3.5.8.1, 3.6.6.1, 3.7.4
  19. Cross-site scripting (XSS) from field and configuration text displayed in the Panel
    High · 7.1 CVE-2021-32735 < 3.5.7 3.5.7
  20. Cross-site scripting (XSS) from unsanitized uploaded SVG files in Kirby
    High · 7.6 CVE-2021-29460 < 3.5.4 3.5.4

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