Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessAuthenticate to Backstage portal
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ExploitQuery catalog with case-variant property condition
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ExecutionBypass value-based permission rule
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ImpactReceive restricted entity data
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A05:2025 - Injection
ASVS 5.0
V1 - Encoding and Sanitization Case sensitivity handling
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| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation is limited to deployments that use affected value-based catalog permission conditions (property-matching rules) as a confidentiality boundary in @backstage/plugin-catalog-backend before 3.9.1; installations without such value-based restrictions are not exposed. The attacker must be an authenticated Backstage user (CVSS PR:L), and abuse relies on the inconsistent matching behavior - case-sensitivity differences in property keys/values and mishandling of falsy scalar values (false, 0, empty string) - so the specified restricted property must be reachable via a case- or value-variant that the rule failed to match. No user interaction is required, but the authentication requirement and the non-default dependence on value-based permission conditions meaningfully narrow realistic exposure. |
| Impact | All signals point to a genuine but low-severity information-disclosure issue rather than a high-priority emergency. The provided CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N, base 4.3/Medium) indicates a network-reachable, low-complexity flaw requiring an already-authenticated user (PR:L), with only limited confidentiality impact and no integrity or availability effect - consistent with the CWE-178 (improper case-sensitivity handling) root cause visible in the commit, where property matching failed to normalize case and mishandled falsy scalar values. No EPSS score was supplied, the CVE is not listed in CISA KEV, and no public exploit code is referenced, so there is no public exploit identified at time of analysis. Crucially, real-world risk is further gated by configuration: the flaw only crosses a confidentiality boundary in deployments that specifically use value-based catalog permission conditions to restrict entity data, so many Backstage instances are unaffected. One data-quality caveat: the description and package metadata say the fix is @backstage/plugin-catalog-backend 3.9.1, but a referenced release tag is v1.54.6 - these are the plugin package version versus the umbrella Backstage release, not a contradiction, but defenders should confirm which version string applies to their deployment. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An authenticated Backstage user whose access to certain catalog entities is meant to be restricted by a value-based permission condition queries the catalog using a property key or value that differs only in letter case (or relies on a falsy scalar value) from what the policy author expected. Because the permission rule matched inconsistently, the backend fails to apply the intended restriction and returns entity data the user should not see. No public exploit code is referenced, so this would be a manual or scripted abuse of the authenticated catalog API. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 06, 2026
Inconsistent property-permission matching in the @backstage/plugin-catalog-backend package (Backstage releases prior to the fix) allows an authenticated user to receive catalog entity data that policy authors intended to restrict, because value-based catalog permission conditions evaluate keys and values inconsistently. Exposure is limited to deployments that use these value-based property conditions as a confidentiality boundary; installations without such value-based restrictions are not affected, and no public exploit has been identified at time of analysis. The issue is rated CVSS 4.3 (low severity, information disclosure only) and is fixed in @backstage/plugin-catalog-backend 3.9.1, shipped with Backstage release v1.54.6.
RemediationAI
Upgrade @backstage/plugin-catalog-backend to version 3.9.1 or later; the fix is included in Backstage release v1.54.6 (https://github.com/backstage/backstage/releases/tag/v1.54.6), and the specific code change is commit 21424faa2e280a6bc6b9e5c5245952f16aafca7b. This is a vendor-released patch: no interim hotfix is required if the package can be bumped, and the vendor advisory GHSA-8429-xpcj-3cg5 should be reviewed for any product-specific guidance. Because the patch normalizes case-insensitive matching and now returns falsy scalar values (false, 0, ''), permission rules that previously failed to match may start matching after the upgrade, which can change which entities a given user is allowed to see; re-test catalog permission policies in a staging environment before rolling out. If immediate upgrade is not possible, do not rely on value-based catalog permission conditions as a confidentiality boundary: replace property/value conditions with entity-based or identity-based checks that do not depend on key/value normalization, and, if feasible, temporarily broaden or hide the affected catalog entities (for example by relocating sensitive entities into a namespace or tag that is blocked outright). Note the trade-off that broader blocking reduces catalog usability for non-privileged users and can mask legitimate content, and that restricting catalog read access to trusted groups will limit the portal's usefulness for general developers, so this should be treated only as a short-term compensating control until 3.9.1 is deployed.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 2 packages in euvd
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Technical ContextAI · show details
The affected component is the catalog backend plugin that enforces Backstage's permission framework against catalog entities. Policy authors write value-based conditions using property rules (createPropertyRule) that match on entity fields such as metadata.namespace, metadata.tags, or spec.owner. The root cause is CWE-178 (improper handling of case sensitivity): rule matching treated property keys, nested keys, and values case-sensitively in some code paths (for example a rule keyed on 'namespace' with value 'internal' did not match an entity whose namespace was 'Internal', an ORG.NAME-style nested key was not normalized, and array/spec string values such as 'java' vs 'Java' failed to match), while other paths were intended to be case-insensitive. The second defect is mishandling of falsy scalars: entity property values of false, 0, or '' were not returned by the underlying lookup, so a rule conditioned on such a value silently failed to match. In both cases the mismatch means the restrictive condition does not fire and the entity data flows to a caller the policy meant to block. Per the assessed vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N, exploitation requires an authenticated Backstage user (PR:L), is network-reachable, needs no user interaction, and yields only limited confidentiality impact with no integrity or availability effect. The upstream fix (commit 21424faa2e280a6bc6b9e5c5245952f16aafca7b) normalizes property matching for case-insensitive keys/values and correctly returns falsy scalar values, and it is accompanied by expanded unit tests covering false, 0, empty-string, nested-key, and array-value cases.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
Authenticated catalog user over the network (AV:N, PR:L) exploits inconsistent matching with no user interaction; impact is limited unauthorized data disclosure only (C:L, I:N, A:N).
Primary rating from Vendor (github).
CVSS VectorVendor: github
Lifecycle Timeline
1DescriptionCVE.org
Backstage is an open framework for building developer portals. Prior to 3.9.1, the @backstage/plugin-catalog-backend package is affected by inconsistent catalog property permission evaluation. In deployments that use affected value-based catalog permission conditions as a confidentiality boundary, an authenticated user could receive catalog entity data that policy authors intended to restrict. This issue is fixed in version 3.9.1.
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
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
Backstage is an open platform for building developer portals. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.9), this vulnerability is
Authenticated Backstage users can retrieve the internal execution data of other users' Scaffolder tasks - notably the Se
Authenticated users who can register or modify a TechDocs documentation source can achieve code execution inside the Bac
Authenticated remote code execution in the @backstage/plugin-techdocs-node package shipped with the Backstage developer
Arbitrary code execution in Backstage TechDocs documentation builds allows an authenticated user with write access to a
Arbitrary Python code execution in Backstage's @backstage/plugin-techdocs-node (versions < 1.13.11 and = 1.14.0) lets a
Improper task-state validation in the @backstage/plugin-scaffolder-backend plugin (Backstage versions prior to 3.3.1, 3.
Path traversal in the Backstage Scaffolder Bitbucket pull-request publish actions allows an authenticated user who can e
Arbitrary code execution on the TechDocs backend host is achievable through a sanitizer bypass in the @backstage/plugin-
Improper input validation in the @backstage/plugin-scaffolder-backend-module-sentry scaffolder actions (Backstage 0.3.0
@backstage/plugin-scaffolder-backend is the backend for the default Backstage software templates. Rated high severity (C
Authenticated users of Backstage Scaffolder can bypass administrator-configured action restrictions in @backstage/plugin
EUVD-2026-94054
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
GitHub
Exploit-DB