Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessAuthenticate as low-privilege user
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DeliverySend request to /api/v1/terminals/{server_id}/{admin path}
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ExploitProxy forwards with shared admin key
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ExecutionReach Terminals admin API
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ImpactModify policies and inject env vars into other users' terminals
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V8 - Authorization Authorization checks on every request
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 a valid low-privilege authenticated account on the target Open WebUI instance (PR:L) AND a deployment where the terminal feature/terminal proxy is enabled with one or more configured terminal servers reachable via /api/v1/terminals/{server_id}/{path}. The attack is remote and needs no user interaction, but it is meaningfully limited to multi-user deployments: the proxy must have a valid shared key configured to the backend Terminals admin API, and only versions 0.8.6 through those before 0.11.4 are affected. Single-user or fully trusted-user instances, and instances not using the terminals feature, are not realistically exposed. |
| Impact | This is a genuine but moderate-priority issue rather than an emergency. The CVSS 4.0 score of 7.2 (AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N) indicates network-reachable, low-complexity exploitation requiring only a low-privilege authenticated account - consistent with the description's 'authenticated users' and CWE-862 (Missing Authorization). The dominant impact is integrity (VI:H): an authenticated user can modify terminal policies and inject environment variables into other users' terminals, with lower confidentiality/availability impact (VC:L/VA:L) from listing and stopping those terminals. No EPSS score, KEV listing, or public POC was provided, so there is no evidence of active exploitation - this is a vendor/researcher-disclosed flaw (VulnCheck) with a patch, not a signal of in-the-wild activity. The source-code diff confirms the root cause and fix (an admin-API path allowlist plus hardened path sanitization against tab/newline-based '..' traversal), which strengthens confidence that the vulnerability is real and well-understood. The key gating factor is that an attacker must already hold a valid account on the Open WebUI instance, which substantially narrows the realistic threat to multi-user deployments with untrusted or semi-trusted users; single-user or trusted-team instances face minimal real-world risk. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker with an ordinary authenticated Open WebUI account sends crafted requests to /api/v1/terminals/{server_id}/{path}, which the terminal proxy forwards to the backend Terminals administrator API with the shared key automatically attached. This lets the attacker enumerate and stop other users' terminal sessions and alter terminal policies - notably injecting attacker-controlled environment variables into victims' terminals. No public exploit was identified at time of analysis, though the patch commit publicly reveals the vulnerable path-handling logic. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 12, 2026
Authenticated low-privilege users of Open WebUI versions 0.8.6 up to but not including 0.11.4 can escalate privileges through the terminal proxy endpoint /api/v1/terminals/{server_id}/{path}, which forwards requests to the backend Terminals administrator API with the shared key attached; by targeting admin paths directly, an attacker can enumerate and stop other users' terminals, modify terminal policies, and inject environment variables into other users' sessions. The flaw is a missing-authorization (CWE-862) path-confusion issue reachable by any account with PR:L and no user interaction, and it only matters where the terminals feature is enabled against configured terminal servers in a multi-user deployment. No public exploit code has been identified at time of analysis and the issue is not tied to any confirmed active exploitation, but the vendor has shipped a fix and the independent assessment rates this as a genuine, moderate-priority risk rather than an emergency.
RemediationAI
Upgrade to Open WebUI 0.11.4 or later, which is the first release outside the stated affected range (0.8.6 before 0.11.4); the fix is carried by upstream commit 51bb8cb142f72503e861eeee25ae4dc73c26c36b and documented in the vendor advisory GHSA-q46m-r89w-j74p. If the upgrade cannot be scheduled immediately, the most effective compensating control is to disable the terminals feature or remove all configured terminal servers on multi-user instances, which removes the /api/v1/terminals proxy route entirely - the trade-off is the loss of integrated terminal functionality for all users. Where terminals must stay enabled, terminate them behind an authenticating reverse proxy or API gateway that blocks requests whose path resolves into the proxied backend admin routes (anything matching api/v1/policies, api/v1/status or api/v1/terminals after the server base path) and strip any path containing backslash, tab, CR or LF sequences, accepting that path-matching at the edge is fragile and may miss encodings the upstream yarl-based check normalizes correctly. Because exploitation requires only a valid low-privilege account, also review existing terminal configurations and audit terminal policies and environment variables for unauthorized modifications that may have occurred prior to patching, and rotate the shared key used between the Open WebUI proxy and the Terminals administrator API as a precaution.
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
The root cause is CWE-862 (Missing Authorization) combined with URL path-confusion in Open WebUI's terminal proxy router (backend/open_webui/routers/terminals.py). The proxy is designed to forward a user's request to a configured terminal server while attaching a shared key that grants administrative access to that server's Terminals API. Path sanitization only stripped backslash-based traversal, so requests whose path pointed straight at sensitive backend routes - the 'api/v1/policies', 'api/v1/status' and 'api/v1/terminals' admin endpoints - were proxied unmodified together with the privileged key, effectively letting any authenticated user borrow the administrator credential. A secondary weakness was that the upstream request followed HTTP redirects (allow_redirects was enabled), which could move a request onto an otherwise blocked path. The upstream fix adds an ADMIN_API_PATHS denylist and compares the resolved target path (parsed with yarl) against the configured terminal server's base path before forwarding, rejects backslash, tab, CR and LF characters in the decoded path because URL parsers normalize those and can turn '.\t.' into '..', and sets allow_redirects=False. The CPE cpe:2.3:a:open-webui:open-webui:* reflects that the entire Open WebUI product line is matched by the affected-version range rather than a single component. Assessed impact is low confidentiality, high integrity and low availability (S:U), driven mainly by the ability to rewrite policies and inject environment variables into other users' terminals.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:H/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Remote, low-complexity, requires a low-privilege authenticated account (PR:L); high integrity impact from policy/env-var injection, with lesser confidentiality (listing) and availability (stopping terminals) impact.
Primary rating from Vendor (VulnCheck).
CVSS VectorVendor: VulnCheck
DescriptionCVE.org
Open WebUI from 0.8.6 before 0.11.4 contains a privilege escalation vulnerability in the terminal proxy that allows authenticated users to reach the Terminals administrator API with the shared key attached. Attackers can send requests through /api/v1/terminals/{server_id}/{path} to list or stop other users' terminals and modify terminal policies, injecting environment variables into other users' terminals.
Executive ViewAI
A missing-authorization flaw in Open WebUI (versions 0.8.6 through 0.11.3) allows any authenticated low-privilege user to reach administrative functions on the backend Terminals API through the terminal proxy endpoint, letting them view, stop, and reconfigure other users' terminal sessions, including injecting environment variables into those sessions. The exposure is limited to multi-user deployments where the terminals feature is enabled and connected to terminal servers, but for those organizations it undermines the isolation between ordinary users and administrative control of shared infrastructure. No public exploit code has been identified at time of analysis, and the vendor has already released a fix, so leadership should treat this as a scheduled remediation item rather than an emergency.
Apply vendor patch. Until patched, disable the terminals feature or limit terminal server integration to trusted administrators only, and monitor terminal proxy traffic for access to administrator paths.
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
Authentication bypass attacks exploit flaws in the verification mechanisms that control access to systems and applications.
Privilege escalation occurs when an attacker leverages flaws in access control mechanisms to gain permissions beyond what they were originally granted.
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EUVD-2026-98155
GHSA-865q-vfjv-p93j
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Exploit-DB