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PayloadApplication · Payloadcms

CVE-2023-30843

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-04-26
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 1.7.0 or later.
See remediation →
71/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
Payload is a free and open source headless content management system. In versions prior to 1.7.0, if a user has access to documents that contain hidden fields or fields they do not have access to, the user could reverse-engineer those values via brute force. Version 1.7.0 contains a patch. As a workaround, write a `beforeOperation` hook to remove `where` queries that attempt to access hidden field data.

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 Payload CMS versions before 1.7.0, users with document access containing hidden fields or fields they lack permission to view could reverse-engineer those restricted values through brute force queries. The vulnerability stems from insufficient access control on query filtering that allows enumeration of sensitive field data.

MitigationUpgrade to Payload CMS 1.7.0 or later, or implement a `beforeOperation` hook to sanitize queries attempting to access hidden field data.

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
PayloadApplication
Affected:< 1.7.0

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
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

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

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 Payload CMS version
    Inspect package.json or package-lock.json for the @payloadcms/payload version number
    Affected if The installed version is before 1.7.0 (any version < 1.7.0)
  2. Review collection field configurations
    Examine collection config files for fields with hidden: true or access controls that restrict visibility
    Affected if Collections contain fields marked as hidden or fields with restricted read access
  3. Assess API access by untrusted users
    Review authentication and authorization settings to determine if collection API endpoints are accessible to users who should not see certain field values
    Affected if Collection APIs are accessible to users without full field permission
  4. Test query parameter behavior
    Send API requests with filter parameters targeting hidden or restricted fields using different values to observe different responses
    Affected if The API returns different responses that allow inferring restricted field values through repeated queries

Your environment is affected if running Payload CMS version below 1.7.0 and you have collections with hidden or permission-restricted fields accessible to untrusted users via the API.

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 1.7.0 or later
Fixed in 1.7.0
Interim mitigation

Upgrade to Payload CMS 1.7.0 or later, or implement a `beforeOperation` hook to sanitize queries attempting to access hidden field data.

Recommended fix Moderate confidence

Payload version 1.7.0

  1. Check the current Payload version by examining your package.json or running `npm list payload`
  2. Upgrade Payload to version 1.7.0 or later by running `npm install payload@^1.7.0` or `yarn add payload@^1.7.0`
  3. After upgrading, rebuild and restart your application to ensure the fix is applied
  4. Verify the version has been updated by checking `npm list payload` again
  5. Test that users without access to hidden fields can no longer access or brute-force those field values
Caveat Review release notes for 1.7.0 to check for any breaking changes in your specific configuration; minor version upgrades typically have minimal breaking changes but custom hooks or field configurations should be verified

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

Fix this in Payload Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation5.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
13.0 hours of engineering $2,310
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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-2023-30843 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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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