CVE-2026-65016: n8n SSO Instance-Role Provisioning Allows Privilege Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-35q8-9mj6-wjmf",
  "modified" : "2026-07-22T22:04:04Z",
  "published" : "2026-07-22T22:04:04Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2026-65016" ],
  "summary" : "n8n: SSO Instance-Role Provisioning Allows Privilege Escalation to Instance Owner",
  "details" : "## Impact\nn8n's Enterprise SSO instance-role provisioning maps a role claim asserted by the configured Identity Provider (IdP) to an n8n global role and applies it during authentication. The provisioning path did not prevent assignment of the `global:owner` role, unlike the token-exchange identity path, which explicitly rejects it. As a result, an SSO-authenticated user whose instance-role claim resolves to `global:owner` is provisioned as an instance owner, obtaining full administrative control over all workflows, credentials, users, and instance configuration.\n\nThis is a privilege-escalation issue that is exploitable only under specific conditions. It affects instances where Enterprise SSO is configured and instance-role provisioning is enabled via the `N8N_SSO_SCOPES_PROVISION_INSTANCE_ROLE` flag, which is disabled by default. Exploitation additionally requires the attacker to control the value of the instance-role claim issued by the IdP. As this claim is typically an administrator-managed attribute, exploitation generally requires control over the IdP or its claim-to-role mapping, or a permissive IdP configuration in which a lower-privileged user can influence the claim value. Deployments that do not use Enterprise SSO, or that have instance-role provisioning disabled, are not affected.\n\n## Patches\nThe issue has been fixed in n8n versions 1.123.64, 2.29.8, and 2.30.1. Users should upgrade to one of these versions or later to remediate the vulnerability.\n\n## Workarounds\nIf upgrading is not immediately possible, administrators should consider the following temporary mitigations:\n- Disable instance-role provisioning by unsetting or setting `N8N_SSO_SCOPES_PROVISION_INSTANCE_ROLE=false`.\n- Audit IdP claim mappings to ensure no user-controllable attribute can supply the instance-role claim value.\n- Restrict SSO access to fully trusted users only.\n\nThese workarounds do not fully remediate the risk and should only be used as short-term mitigation measures.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V4",
    "score" : "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "npm",
      "name" : "n8n"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "1.123.64"
      } ]
    } ]
  }, {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "npm",
      "name" : "n8n"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "2.30.0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "2.30.1"
      } ]
    } ]
  }, {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "npm",
      "name" : "n8n"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "2.0.0-rc.0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "2.29.8"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/security/advisories/GHSA-35q8-9mj6-wjmf"
  }, {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-65016"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/releases/tag/n8n@1.123.64"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/releases/tag/n8n@2.29.8"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/releases/tag/n8n@2.30.1"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/n8n-before-privilege-escalation-via-sso-instance-role"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-639" ],
    "severity" : "HIGH",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2026-07-22T22:04:04Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : null
  }
}