Executive brief
LiquidFiles, a secure file transfer appliance, is affected by a security flaw that allows an administrator of a secondary domain to gain full system-wide administrative control. By exploiting a logic error in how user groups are managed, a restricted administrator can elevate their own account or others to the highest 'SysAdmin' level. This could allow an attacker to bypass domain isolation, access data across the entire appliance, and disrupt operations.
Technical details
A broken access control vulnerability exists in the `admin/groups_controller.rb` component of LiquidFiles. The logic intended to restrict administrators from creating groups with higher privileges than their own (CWE-285) failed to account for the 'SysAdmin' level (admin_level 5) when checking permissions for secondary domain admins. An attacker with Domain Admin credentials can intercept and modify a web request (POST/PATCH) to `/admin/groups/` to set the `admin_level` to 5. This allows the attacker to bypass domain-level isolation and gain full system-wide administrative access. The issue is resolved in version 4.2.12 by implementing a more robust `permitted_admin_level?` check.
Affected products
- LiquidFiles LiquidFiles before 4.2.12
Timeline
- 2026-06-20: disclosed
- 2026-06-20: advisory