CVE-2026-119215 PUBLISHED

AshAuthentication TOTP setup lets a user install their own authenticator secret on another user's account

Assigner: EEF
Reserved: 03.11.2026 Published: 03.11.2026 Updated: 03.11.2026

Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key vulnerability in team-alembic ash_authentication allows a user with an account to install a TOTP secret they control on another user's account, and then sign in as that user or hold their second factor.

AshAuthentication.Strategy.Totp.ConfirmSetupChange verified a setup token but did not check that it was issued to the record being confirmed, so an attacker's own pending secret could be confirmed onto another user's record. The TOTP setup changes, ConfirmSetupChange, GeneratePendingSetupChange and GenerateSecretChange, also marked their changesets as AshAuthentication interactions, which the standard AshAuthenticationInteraction policy bypass lets through. A policy limiting setup and confirm_setup to the actor's own record therefore never ran when an application exposed those actions by record key, and a direct setup call on another user's record returned that user's pending secret and setup token.

This issue affects ash_authentication: from 5.0.0-rc.0 before 5.0.0-rc.16.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CVSS Score: 7.6

Product Status

Vendor team-alembic
Product ash_authentication
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 5.0.0-rc.0 to 5.0.0-rc.16 (excl.)
Vendor team-alembic
Product ash_authentication
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 6e7a880698614887527a87df206b4eb0c0fbd8c1 to 4058be0f519c2e9b0d2266e90f9c7d8547d54574 (excl.)

Affected Configurations

An application exposes the TOTP setup or confirm_setup action on a record the caller identifies, for example through AshJsonApi, AshGraphql or a controller that passes a looked-up user to AshAuthentication.Strategy.Totp.Actions.confirm_setup/3, and the attacker can read the victim's user record. Installing the attacker's secret requires confirm_setup_enabled? true; signing in with it alone requires sign_in_enabled? true. The routes AshAuthentication and AshAuthenticationPhoenix provide always use the signed-in user and are not affected.

Workarounds

Do not expose setup or confirm_setup on a record the caller chooses. Call them through AshAuthentication.Strategy.Totp.Actions with the signed-in user, as the built-in routes do.

Credits

  • eliteaja11-dev finder
  • eliteaja11-dev reporter
  • Zach Daniel / Ash Project remediation developer

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-639 Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key CWE

Impacts

  • CAPEC-1 Accessing Functionality Not Properly Constrained by ACLs