Executive brief
Fides is an open-source platform used by organizations to manage data privacy requests, such as requests from users to delete their personal information. A flaw in the system allowed administrators to approve data deletion or access requests even if the person making the request had not verified their identity. This could lead to the unauthorized deletion of a customer's records across all connected business systems if an attacker submits a fraudulent request that is then approved by an administrator.
Technical details
A vulnerability exists in Fides where privacy requests marked with a 'duplicate' status could bypass identity verification requirements during the administrator approval workflow. When both subject identity verification and duplicate privacy request detection are enabled, the system allowed the 'duplicate' status to be an acceptable state for approval without a secondary check for 'identity_verified_at' timestamps. An attacker can exploit this by submitting multiple requests; if a request is flagged as a duplicate, an administrator could manually approve it even if the requester never completed the verification flow. This results in an authentication bypass for critical privacy actions, such as data erasure across all configured integrations. The issue is fixed in version 2.83.2 by enforcing identity verification checks even for duplicate-status overrides.
Affected products
- Ethyca Fides 2.75.0 to before 2.83.2
Timeline
- 2026-04-21: patched: Fixes merged into main branch
- 2026-05-12: advisory: CVE-2026-42303 published
References
- https://github.com/ethyca/fides/commit/0e320b20934eb5af3a3d5127dba2691605d7ff37
- https://github.com/ethyca/fides/commit/e7a6527b0f9fdc9887b86a89bb5453e7421882dd
- https://github.com/ethyca/fides/pull/7971
- https://github.com/ethyca/fides/pull/7972
- https://github.com/ethyca/fides/releases/tag/2.83.2
- https://github.com/ethyca/fides/security/advisories/GHSA-qx5f-ghc2-7g5c