Executive brief
n8n is a workflow automation platform that uses Enterprise SSO for user authentication. When instance-role provisioning is enabled (disabled by default), a flaw in the SSO integration allows an authenticated user to escalate their privileges to instance owner—granting them full administrative control over all workflows, credentials, users, and system configuration. Exploitation requires the attacker to control the role claim value issued by the identity provider, typically requiring compromise or misconfiguration of the SSO system.
Technical details
The vulnerability is an authorization bypass in n8n's Enterprise SSO instance-role provisioning. Unlike the token-exchange identity path which explicitly rejects the global:owner role assignment, the provisioning path fails to validate that role mappings cannot assign global:owner. An SSO-authenticated user whose instance-role claim (asserted by the IdP) maps to global:owner is incorrectly provisioned as an instance owner. Attack vector is network-based over SSO authentication channel; requires Enterprise SSO to be configured, the N8N_SSO_SCOPES_PROVISION_INSTANCE_ROLE flag enabled, and attacker control over the instance-role claim value. The issue is fixed in n8n versions 1.123.64, 2.29.8, and 2.30.1.
Affected products
- n8n n8n before 1.123.64, 2.29.8, and 2.30.1
Timeline
- 2026-07-08: disclosed
- 2026-07-08: patched: Fixed in versions 1.123.64, 2.29.8, and 2.30.1
- 2026-07-22: advisory