Apache Syncope Plagued by Three Critical Vulnerabilities, Enabling Code Execution and Data Theft
Apache Syncope, an open-source identity management platform, suffers from three critical vulnerabilities allowing SQL injection, Groovy sandbox bypass, and JWT token takeover.
Apache Syncope, a widely used open-source platform for managing identities and access governance across enterprise applications, is facing a significant security challenge with the disclosure of three critical vulnerabilities. These flaws, affecting multiple versions of its 3.0, 4.0, and 4.1 releases, could empower attackers to execute malicious SQL commands, bypass security sandbox protections, and impersonate users with elevated privileges, posing a severe risk to organizations handling sensitive identity data.
The first vulnerability, identified as CVE-2026-82232, is an SQL injection flaw within the Task search functionality. The issue arises from insufficient sanitization of special SQL elements provided through the 'sort' parameter. Attackers with administrative privileges can exploit this by injecting malicious SQL code, potentially leading to the exposure, alteration, or deletion of sensitive database information. The vulnerability also supports stacked queries, allowing for the execution of additional commands beyond the intended scope, which could be used to manipulate task records, extract identity data, or modify configuration settings.
This SQL injection vulnerability impacts the syncope-core-persistence-jpa component across Apache Syncope versions 3.0.0-M0 through 3.0.16, 4.0.0-M0 through 4.0.7, and 4.1.0-M0 through 4.1.2. Security researcher Alon Galili is credited with discovering this critical flaw.
The second critical vulnerability, CVE-2026-77147, targets the Groovy security sandbox within the syncope-core-spring component. It allows a privileged administrator to circumvent intended security measures designed to restrict the execution of unsafe Groovy code. By crafting a malicious Groovy Command class with untrusted code in its static CommandArgs implementation, an attacker can escape the sandbox when CommandArgs is empty. This escape allows for the execution of arbitrary code within the Apache Syncope application's context, potentially granting access to sensitive application data, backend services, credentials, and connected identity systems. Researcher n0mi1k discovered this vulnerability.
Adding to the severity, a third flaw, CVE-2026-73178, enables the takeover of JWT access tokens. This vulnerability, affecting the syncope-core-provisioning-java component, allows an administrator with sufficient entitlements to use the REST interface to retrieve existing access tokens, including their signed JWT bodies. These tokens can then be reused to make REST requests while impersonating users with higher administrative privileges, effectively hijacking user sessions and gaining unauthorized access. This issue was also reported by researcher n0mi1k.
Apache has released patches for these vulnerabilities, with fixes available in Syncope versions 4.0.8 and 4.1.3. Organizations running vulnerable versions are strongly advised to upgrade immediately to prevent potential exploitation. Beyond patching, administrators should conduct thorough reviews of privileged accounts, audit recent REST API activity for suspicious requests, rotate any potentially compromised tokens, and closely monitor database logs for unusual SQL query patterns or unexpected behavior related to task searches.
These vulnerabilities highlight the ongoing risks associated with complex identity management systems, which often hold the keys to an organization's digital infrastructure. The combination of SQL injection, code execution, and token hijacking capabilities presents a potent attack vector, underscoring the need for continuous security vigilance and prompt patching of critical software components.