ElabftwApplication

CVE-2022-31007

HIGH · 7.2 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-05-31
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 4.3.0 or later.
See remediation →
78/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
eLabFTW is an electronic lab notebook manager for research teams. Prior to version 4.3.0, a vulnerability allows an authenticated user with an administrator role in a team to assign itself system administrator privileges within the application, or create a new system administrator account. The issue has been corrected in eLabFTW version 4.3.0. In the context of eLabFTW, an administrator is a user account with certain privileges to manage users and content in their assigned team/teams. A system administrator account can manage all accounts, teams and edit system-wide settings within the application. The impact is not deemed as high, as it requires the attacker to have access to an administrator account. Regular user accounts cannot exploit this to gain admin rights. A workaround for one if the issues is removing the ability of administrators to create accounts.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

In eLabFTW versions prior to 4.3.0, an authorization flaw allows team-level administrators to escalate their privileges to system administrator level or create new system administrator accounts. The application fails to properly enforce authorization boundaries between team administrators and system-wide administrators during user privilege assignment.

MitigationUpgrade eLabFTW to version 4.3.0 or later. As a compensating control, disable the ability for team administrators to create new user accounts if upgrading is not immediately feasible.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
ElabftwApplication
Affected:< 4.3.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify installed eLabFTW version
    Locate the version file in the eLabFTW installation directory, or access the admin panel to view the installed version number. Common locations include a config file or the About section in the web interface.
    Affected if The installed version is below 4.3.0 (e.g., 4.2.x, 4.1.x, earlier versions).
  2. Confirm team administrator role exists
    Access the admin panel and review user roles to identify if any users have the team administrator role assigned.
    Affected if At least one user has team administrator privileges in the system.
  3. Audit user accounts for unauthorized system administrators
    Review all user accounts in the system and check their assigned roles. Look for system administrator accounts that were not created by an existing legitimate system administrator.
    Affected if There are system administrator accounts that should not exist or were created by team administrators.
  4. Check for privilege escalation from team admin to sysadmin
    Examine the user management or privileges panel to identify if any team administrator accounts have been granted system administrator capabilities beyond their intended team-level access.
    Affected if A team administrator account has system-wide administrator privileges.

You are affected if running eLabFTW version prior to 4.3.0 and your environment contains team administrators who may have created system administrator accounts or gained system-wide admin access.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 4.3.0 or later
Fixed in 4.3.0
Interim mitigation

Upgrade eLabFTW to version 4.3.0 or later. As a compensating control, disable the ability for team administrators to create new user accounts if upgrading is not immediately feasible.

Recommended fix High confidence

4.3.0

  1. Create a full backup of the eLabFTW database and application files before proceeding with the upgrade
  2. Upgrade eLabFTW to version 4.3.0 or later following the standard upgrade procedure for your deployment method
  3. After upgrading, verify that the system administrator privileges are properly restricted by testing that team administrators cannot assign themselves system administrator roles
  4. If using Docker, pull the latest container image and recreate the container with the updated version
  5. Confirm the upgrade was successful by logging in and checking the version number in the administration panel

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Elabftw Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA3.0 h
19.0 hours of engineering $3,380
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $5,408.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-31007 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data