CVE-2022-41948
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 · uneditedDHIS 2 is an open source information system for data capture, management, validation, analytics and visualization. Affected versions are subject to a privilege escalation vulnerability. A DHIS2 user with authority to manage users can assign superuser privileges to themself by manually crafting an HTTP PUT request. Only users with the following DHIS2 user role authorities can exploit this vulnerability. Note that in many systems the only users with user admin privileges are also superusers. In these cases, the escalation vulnerability does not exist. The vulnerability is only exploitable by attackers who can authenticate as users with the user admin authority. As this is usually a small and relatively trusted set of users, exploit vectors will often be limited. DHIS2 administrators should upgrade to the following hotfix releases: 2.36.12.1, 2.37.8.1, 2.38.2.1, 2.39.0.1. The only known workaround to this issue is to avoid the assignment of the user management authority to any users until the patch has been applied.
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 confidenceDHIS2 allows users with user management authority to escalate their privileges to superuser by manually crafting an HTTP PUT request that assigns superuser privileges to themselves. The vulnerability exists in the user management endpoint where authorization checks are insufficient to prevent a user from granting themselves elevated privileges.
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>= 2.34.0, < 2.36.12.1>= 2.37.0, < 2.37.8.1>= 2.38.0, < 2.38.2.1= 2.39.0CVSS 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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check DHIS2 versionQuery the DHIS2 API endpoint /api/system/info or access the 'About' page in the DHIS2 interface to retrieve the installed version numberAffected if The installed version falls within any of these ranges: >= 2.34.0 and < 2.36.12.1, >= 2.37.0 and < 2.37.8.1, >= 2.38.0 and < 2.38.2.1, or equals 2.39.0
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Identify users with user management authorityQuery the DHIS2 API /api/users with appropriate admin credentials and examine the user roles/authorities assigned to each user, specifically looking for 'ALL' or 'F_USER_MANAGEMENT' authorityAffected if Any user account is assigned a role containing user management authority in an affected DHIS2 version
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Review user roles for superuser privilegesQuery /api/userRoles to list all user roles and check if any role has the 'ALL' authority or superuser flag enabled, then identify which users are assigned those rolesAffected if Users have been assigned roles with superuser privileges (ALL authority) beyond the original system administrator account
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Audit recent privilege changesCheck DHIS2 audit logs or history via /api/audits for changes to user roles or user authorities, focusing on recent PUT or UPDATE operations to user management endpointsAffected if Non-administrator users have recent entries in audit logs showing changes to their own user role assignments or privilege levels
Your environment is affected if you run an affected DHIS2 version (2.34.x, 2.37.x, 2.38.x, or 2.39.0) and any user account has been granted user management authority.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 · scoped2.36.12.12.37.8.12.38.2.1
Upgrade DHIS2 to the hotfix releases 2.36.12.1, 2.37.8.1, 2.38.2.1, or 2.39.0.1. As a temporary workaround, avoid granting user management authority to any users until the patch is applied.
2.36.12.1, 2.37.8.1, 2.38.2.1, or 2.39.0.1 depending on current version
- Identify the currently installed DHIS2 version from the affected version ranges
- If running >= 2.34.0 and < 2.36.12.1, upgrade to version 2.36.12.1
- If running >= 2.37.0 and < 2.37.8.1, upgrade to version 2.37.8.1
- If running >= 2.38.0 and < 2.38.2.1, upgrade to version 2.38.2.1
- If running version 2.39.0, upgrade to version 2.39.0.1
- Verify the upgrade was successful and test that the privilege escalation vulnerability is no longer exploitable
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2022-41948 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-41948 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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