CVE-2026-59259

n8n - Permission Bypass via Expression Parser Mismatch in External Secrets

State: Published
Severity: 6.0 Medium
Published: Jul 15, 2026
Updated: Oct 29, 2026
Reserved: Jul 4, 2026

Description

n8n before versions 1.123.61, 2.27.4, and 2.28.1 contains a permission bypass vulnerability in external secrets handling caused by a mismatch between the static validation check and the runtime expression engine. An authenticated user with credential create or update permissions but without the externalSecret:list scope can embed external secret references into credentials in forms the static validation does not detect; these references resolve at workflow execution time, exposing secret values the user is not authorized to access. This issue only affects instances where an external secrets provider is configured and Advanced Permissions are in use.

Scores

CVSS	Score	Vector	Source
4.0	6.0 Medium	CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N	VulnCheck

Weaknesses

CWE-639 Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key

Affected Products

Product	Versions
n8nn8n	before 1.123.61Affected 1.123.61Not affected
n8nn8n	2.28.0 to before 2.28.1Affected 2.28.1Not affected
n8nn8n	2.0.0-rc.0 to before 2.27.4Affected 2.27.4Not affected

References

GitHub Security Advisory (GHSA-jp7m-xcgx-57qm)vendor-advisory
VulnCheck Advisory: n8n - Permission Bypass via Expression Parser Mismatch in External Secretsthird-party-advisory

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