CVE-2021-32648: October/system Account Takeover Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-mxr5-mc97-63rc",
  "modified" : "2025-10-22T19:06:40Z",
  "published" : "2021-08-30T16:13:02Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2021-32648" ],
  "summary" : "Account Takeover in Octobercms",
  "details" : "### Impact\n\nAn attacker can request an account password reset and then gain access to the account using a specially crafted request.\n\n- To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must know the username of an administrator and have access to the password reset form.\n\n### Patches\n\n- Issue has been patched in Build 472 and v1.1.5\n- [Shortened patch instructions](https://github.com/daftspunk/CVE-2021-32648)\n\n### Workarounds\n\nApply https://github.com/octobercms/library/commit/016a297b1bec55d2e53bc889458ed2cb5c3e9374 and https://github.com/octobercms/library/commit/5bd1a28140b825baebe6becd4f7562299d3de3b9 to your installation manually if you are unable to upgrade.\n\n[**Update 2022-01-20**] [Shortened patch instructions](https://github.com/daftspunk/CVE-2021-32648) can be found here.\n\n### Recommendations\n\nWe recommend the following steps to make sure your server stays secure:\n\n- Keep server OS and system software up to date.\n- Keep October CMS software up to date.\n- Use a multi-factor authentication plugin.\n- Change the [default backend URL](https://github.com/octobercms/october/blob/1.1/config/cms.php#L39) or block public access to the backend area.\n- Include the [Roave/SecurityAdvisories](https://github.com/Roave/SecurityAdvisories) Composer package to ensure that your application doesn't have installed dependencies with known security vulnerabilities.\n\n### References\n\nBugs found as part of Solar Security CMS Research. Credits to:\n• Andrey Basarygin\n• Andrey Guzei\n• Mikhail Khramenkov\n• Alexander Sidukov\n• Maxim Teplykh\n\n### For more information\nIf you have any questions or comments about this advisory:\n* Email us at [hello@octobercms.com](mailto:hello@octobercms.com)",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N/E:H"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "Packagist",
      "name" : "october/system"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "1.0.472"
      } ]
    } ]
  }, {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "Packagist",
      "name" : "october/system"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "1.1.1"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "1.1.5"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/octobercms/october/security/advisories/GHSA-mxr5-mc97-63rc"
  }, {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-32648"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/octobercms/library/commit/016a297b1bec55d2e53bc889458ed2cb5c3e9374"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/octobercms/library/commit/5bd1a28140b825baebe6becd4f7562299d3de3b9"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/octobercms/october"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2021-32648"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-287" ],
    "severity" : "HIGH",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2021-08-26T20:14:45Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : "2021-08-26T19:15:00Z"
  }
}