CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-27089 — Directus is a real-time API and App dashboard for managing SQL database content

Medium CVSS 5.4

Directus is a real-time API and App dashboard for managing SQL database content. In affected versions if there are two overlapping policies for the `update` action that allow access to different fields, instead of correctly checking access permissions against the item they apply for the user is allowed to update the superset of fields allowed by any of the policies. E.g. have one policy allowing update access to `field_a` if the `id == 1` and one policy allowing update access to `field_b` if the `id == 2`. The user with both these policies is allowed to update both `field_a` and `field_b` for the items with ids `1` and `2`. Before v11, if a user was allowed to update an item they were allowed to update the fields that the single permission, that applied to that item, listed. With overlapping permissions this isn't as clear cut anymore and the union of fields might not be the fields the user is allowed to update for that specific item. The solution that this PR introduces is to evaluate the permissions for each field that the user tries to update in the validateItemAccess DB query, instead of only verifying access to the item as a whole. This is done by, instead of returning the ac…

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.4 (3.1)
Published
2025-02-19
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-863

Affected products

  • monospace / directus

Matched remediation archetype

Authorization bypass, IDOR, and cross-tenant access

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map object and action authorization checks across API, UI, batch, import/export, and background-job paths.
  • Identify tenant, ownership, role, and policy boundaries for affected resources and administrative operations.
  • Use synthetic fixtures to compare intended access matrices without accessing another user's real data.

Remediate safely

  • Enforce server-side authorization at each resource access and state transition using the authenticated principal and trusted tenant context.
  • Scope data queries by tenant and ownership; treat client-supplied identifiers, roles, and policy claims as untrusted.
  • Add deny-by-default policy tests for horizontal and vertical access across every affected transport.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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