Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessAuthenticate as delegated admin with addnews/delnews
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DeliveryRead update-news CSRF token from own cookie
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ExploitSend PUT /admin/api/news/update
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ExecutionPass flawed NEWS_DELETE permission check
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ImpactRewrite public news header, body, author and active flag
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V8 - Authorization Authorization logic validation
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Privilege Escalation The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Requires an authenticated delegated-administrator account that holds the addnews and delnews rights but lacks the editnews (NEWS_EDIT) right; the vulnerable endpoint PUT /admin/api/news/update erroneously authorizes against the NEWS_DELETE permission. The attacker must read the valid update-news CSRF token from their own session cookie. Limiting factors: this is not exploitable by unauthenticated or anonymous users (PR:H), it only applies to installations that use delegated/multi-admin accounts with these specific granular rights, and impact is confined to modifying public-facing news items (integrity only) with no data disclosure or service disruption. |
| Impact | This is a medium-severity, authenticated authorization flaw (CWE-863) with a realistically constrained risk profile. The provided CVSS 4.0 vector (AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:N, VI:L only, VC/VA:N, score 5.1) is internally consistent with the description: exploitation is network-reachable and low-complexity, but requires high privileges (PR:H) - specifically an existing delegated-admin account already holding the addnews and delnews rights. The only impact is low integrity (public-facing news content tampering); there is no confidentiality or availability impact. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no POC indicator were provided, so exploitation status is 'no public exploit identified at time of analysis.' The signals do not conflict - they uniformly point to a privilege-boundary/least-privilege bug rather than a broadly exploitable intrusion vector. Net: this is a legitimate fix-in-the-next-maintenance-cycle issue for multi-admin phpMyFAQ installs, not an emergency; the PR:H requirement and integrity-only impact keep real-world risk modest. The practical concern is insider or over-provisioned-delegate abuse and defacement/misinformation on the public front page, not remote unauthenticated compromise. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A multi-admin phpMyFAQ deployment grants a lower-tier delegated administrator only addnews and delnews rights, intending to deny them edit capability. Because PUT /admin/api/news/update checks the NEWS_DELETE permission instead of NEWS_EDIT, that delegate reads the update-news CSRF token from their own authenticated session cookie and issues the request, rewriting any news item's header, body, author, link, and active flag as shown on the public homepage. No public exploit code was identified; the attack is low-complexity but requires the attacker to already hold a privileged delegated-admin account. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 17, 2026
Public-facing news items in phpMyFAQ 4.0.0 through 4.1.8 can be modified by delegated administrators who lack the editnews permission because the news-update API incorrectly authorizes the request against NEWS_DELETE rather than NEWS_EDIT. The assessed CVSS 3.1 vector is 5.1 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N), requiring an authenticated delegated-admin account with addnews and delnews rights and access to the update-news CSRF token from its own cookie; no public exploit identified at time of analysis. Vendor-released patch: 4.1.9.
RemediationAI
Upgrade phpMyFAQ to 4.1.9 or later (vendor-released patch: 4.1.9) per GHSA-287v-6c6j-x9f7, and verify the installed version and redeploy all admin endpoints. If immediate upgrade is not possible, remove the addnews and delnews rights from delegated-admin roles that do not also need to edit news, which stops the prerequisite permission combination but may disrupt legitimate news creation and deletion workflows; additionally restrict access to /admin/api/news/update to trusted administrative networks where feasible, with the trade-off of blocking legitimate remote admin API use. Audit recent news changes for unauthorized edits and monitor the advisory URL https://github.com/thorsten/phpMyFAQ/security/advisories/GHSA-287v-6c6j-x9f7 for updates.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
phpMyFAQ is a PHP-based FAQ and knowledge-base application with granular delegated-admin permissions. CVE-2026-111888 is CWE-863 (incorrect authorization): the PUT /admin/api/news/update handler enforces NEWS_DELETE instead of NEWS_EDIT, so a role granted addnews and delnews but denied editnews can still update a news item's header, body, author, link, and active flag. The attacker obtains the update-news CSRF token from their own cookie, so CSRF protection does not prevent the abuse. The supplied CPE cpe:2.3:a:thorsten:phpmyfaq:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* identifies the Thorsten phpMyFAQ product but is not version-bounded, while the description and advisory constrain the issue to 4.0.0 before 4.1.9. The independent assessment maps the issue to CVSS 3.1 5.1 with PR:H and integrity-only impact, so it is not an unauthenticated or confidentiality-impacting flaw.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Network-reachable low-complexity API call but requires a privileged delegated-admin account (PR:H); impact limited to tampering with public news content, so I:L with C:N and A:N.
Primary rating from Vendor (VulnCheck).
CVSS VectorVendor: VulnCheck
Lifecycle Timeline
1DescriptionCVE.org
phpMyFAQ from 4.0.0 before 4.1.9 contains an incorrect authorization vulnerability that allows delegated admins lacking the editnews right to modify news by calling PUT /admin/api/news/update, which checks NEWS_DELETE instead of NEWS_EDIT. Attackers holding addnews and delnews can read the update-news CSRF token from their own cookie and rewrite any news item's header, body, author, link and active flag shown on the public front page.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Cross-Site Request Forgery exploits the automatic credential inclusion behavior of web browsers.
Authentication bypass attacks exploit flaws in the verification mechanisms that control access to systems and applications.
Duplicate-email registration handling in phpMyFAQ 4.0.7 through 4.0.13 (and 4.0-nightly-2025-10-03 and earlier) lets una
Insufficient Session Expiration in GitHub repository thorsten/phpmyfaq prior to 3.2.2. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8
Authentication Bypass by Capture-replay in GitHub repository thorsten/phpmyfaq prior to 3.1.12. Rated critical severity
Weak Password Requirements in GitHub repository thorsten/phpmyfaq prior to 3.1.12. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), t
Weak Password Requirements in GitHub repository thorsten/phpmyfaq prior to 3.1.8. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), th
Unauthenticated SQL injection in phpMyFAQ before 4.1.2 allows remote attackers to extract credentials, admin tokens, and
In phpMyFAQ before 2.9.9, there is Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) in admin/stat.ratings.php. Rated high severity (CVS
In phpMyFaq before 2.9.9, there is CSRF in admin/ajax.config.php. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this vulnerability is
In phpMyFAQ before 2.9.9, there is Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) for modifying a glossary. Rated high severity (CVSS
In phpMyFAQ before 2.9.9, there is Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) in admin/stat.main.php. Rated high severity (CVSS 8
phpMyFAQ is an open source FAQ web application for PHP 8.1+ and MySQL, PostgreSQL and other databases. Rated high severi
phpMyFAQ is an open source FAQ web application for PHP 8.1+ and MySQL, PostgreSQL and other databases. Rated high severi
EUVD-2026-103331
GHSA-j2g3-mcv7-r3f2
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
VulDB
Exploit-DB