# CVE-2026-59093: Weaviate < 1.38.0 - Privilege Escalation via Unchecked Permissions in RBAC Role Assignment

> CVE-2026-59093: Weaviate < 1.38.0 - Privilege Escalation via Unchecked Permissions in RBAC Role Assignment. CVSS 8.8 (CVSS 3.1).

Canonical: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-59093
Last updated: 2026-07-14T23:17:33Z

- Published: 2026-07-02 19:40 UTC · Updated: 2026-07-14 23:17 UTC · Assigner: VulnCheck
- CVSS: 8.8 (CVSS 3.1) · Severity: High · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS: 0.71%, 53th percentile (scored 2026-10-25)
- CISA KEV: no
- CWE: CWE-266

## Description

Weaviate before 1.38.0 does not verify that a principal performing an RBAC role assignment holds the permissions granted by the assigned role. The assignRoleToUser and assignRoleToGroup handlers (POST /authz/users/{id}/assign and /authz/groups/{id}/assign) authorize only that the caller may assign roles to the target user or group, not the permissions contained in the assigned roles, unlike role creation which enforces that a user can only create roles with permissions less than or equal to its own. A user holding only the delegated assign\_and\_revoke\_users or assign\_and\_revoke\_groups permission can assign the built-in admin role, or any high-privilege custom role, to itself or others, escalating to full administrative control of the database.

## Affected vendors and products

- weaviate: weaviate

## Tracked companies

- [Weaviate](https://rewindex.com/company/weaviate.md)

## References

- [CVE record on cve.org](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-59093)
- [NVD entry](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-59093)
- [https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/commit/2c75f6fb217631f7751c4b2a7d37a488cef13edb](https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/commit/2c75f6fb217631f7751c4b2a7d37a488cef13edb)
- [https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/pull/11493](https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/pull/11493)
- [https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/releases/tag/v1.38.0](https://github.com/weaviate/weaviate/releases/tag/v1.38.0)
- [https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/weaviate-privilege-escalation-via-unchecked-permissions-in-rbac-role-assignment](https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/weaviate-privilege-escalation-via-unchecked-permissions-in-rbac-role-assignment)

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_Sources: CVE records from the CVE Program (cve.org). CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. (https://www.cve.org/) This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. (https://nvd.nist.gov/) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog from CISA. (https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog) EPSS scores from FIRST (Exploit Prediction Scoring System). (https://www.first.org/epss/)_


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Canonical: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-59093 · Markdown: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-59093.md · JSON: https://rewindex.com/api/v1/cves/CVE-2026-59093 · Data licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) · Generated 2026-10-26T02:14:25.174Z
