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Decidim: Forms admin question editor lacks authorization

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jul 13, 2026 in decidim/decidim • Updated Jul 13, 2026

Package

bundler decidim-demographics (RubyGems)

Affected versions

>= 0.31.0, < 0.31.5
>= 0.32.0.rc1, < 0.32.0

Patched versions

0.31.5
0.32.0

Description

Description

A participant can load the demographics questionnaire admin editor and make changes.

Technical description

The demographics questionnaire editor should require admin access, but the route under /admin/demographics/questions renders the editor interface without checking whether the caller is an admin. A normal participant can load the page and see the live update form action, which proves the protected interface is reachable.

Reproduction steps:

Step 1. Sign in as a normal participant: Open http://localhost:3000/users/sign_in.
Step 2. Request the admin-only editor directly. Open http://localhost:3000/admin/demographics/questions/edit_questions in the same browser.
Step 3. Add another question:

decidim-questions-01

Note that access was denied when attempting to see question responses or settings.

Impact

  • Low-privilege users can access questionnaire-admin interfaces.
  • They can read question-management surfaces that should remain limited to questionnaire managers.

Patches

See decidim/decidim#16665

Workarounds

Disable the "decidim-demographics" module

Reference

OWASP A01:2021 Broken Access Control

Credits

This issue was discovered in a security audit organized by the Decidim Association and made by Radically Open Security against Decidim financed by NGI.

References

@andreslucena andreslucena published to decidim/decidim Jul 13, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jul 13, 2026
Reviewed Jul 13, 2026
Last updated Jul 13, 2026

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

EPSS score

Weaknesses

Improper Access Control

The product does not restrict or incorrectly restricts access to a resource from an unauthorized actor. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-45086

GHSA ID

GHSA-vq6j-hj8w-7v39

Source code

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