Craft CMS Race condition in Token Service potentially allows for token usage greater than the token limit
Package
Affected versions
>= 4.5.0-RC1, <= 4.16.18
>= 5.0.0-RC1, <= 5.8.22
Patched versions
4.16.19
5.8.23
Description
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database
Feb 23, 2026
Reviewed
Feb 23, 2026
Published by the National Vulnerability Database
Feb 24, 2026
Last updated
Feb 24, 2026
A Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) race condition exists in Craft CMS’s token validation service for tokens that explicitly set a limited usage. The
getTokenRoute()method reads a token’s usage count, checks if it’s within limits, then updates the database in separate non-atomic operations. By sending concurrent requests, an attacker can use a single-use impersonation token multiple times before the database update completes.To make this work, an attacker needs to obtain a valid user account impersonation URL with a non-expired token via some other means and exploit a race condition while bypassing any rate-limiting rules in place.
For this to be a privilege escalation, the impersonation URL must include a token for a user account with more permissions than the current user.
References
craftcms/cms@3e4afe1
References