authentik is an open-source identity provider. Prior to versions 2025.12.6, 2026.2.4, and 2026.5.1, the Source stage can be bypassed by sending an empty POST. This issue has been patched in versions 2025.12.6, 2026.2.4, and 2026.5.1.

authentik is an open-source identity provider. Prior to 2026.2.6 and 2026.5.5, an inbound SAML Source configured with the non-default USERNAMELINK or EMAILLINK user-matching mode interprets an XML comment in a NameID differently from the identity provider's signed assertion. An attacker with an account on the source identity provider who can set the account's NameID can inject an XML comment that truncates the value used by authentik to the text before the comment while the signed assertion remains valid. A crafted NameID can therefore truncate to a victim's username or email and bind the attacker's external identity to the victim's existing account. This grants full takeover without the victim's password or the identity provider's private key, and the malicious link persists so later logins succeed without the comment. Sources using the default unique-identifier matching mode and authentik's outbound SAML Provider role are not affected. This issue is fixed in versions 2026.2.6 and 2026.5.5.

authentik is an open-source identity provider. Prior to versions 2025.12.5 and 2026.2.3, due to the implementation of stages in the SFE (Simple Flow Executor) in order to make the interface more compatible with legacy browsers, it was possible to use an XSS exploit in the AutosubmitStage. This issue has been patched in versions 2025.12.5 and 2026.2.3.

authentik is an open-source identity provider. From 2021.3.1 to before 2025.8.6, 2025.10.4, and 2025.12.4, when using delegated permissions, a User that has the permission Can view Property Mapping or Can view Expression Policy is able to execute arbitrary code within the authentik server container through the test endpoint, which is intended to preview how a property mapping/policy works. authentik 2025.8.6, 2025.10.4, and 2025.12.4 fix this issue.

Summary

PKCE is a very important countermeasure in OAuth2 , both for public and confidential clients. It protects against CSRF attacks and code injection attacks. Because of this bug, an attacker can circumvent the protection PKCE offers.

Patches

authentik 2023.8.7 and 2023.10.7 fix this issue.

Details

There is a bug in our implementation of PKCE that allows an attacker to circumvent the protection that PKCE offers. PKCE adds the codechallenge’ parameter to the authorization request and adds the codeverifier’ parameter to the token request. We recently fixed a downgrade attack (in v2023.8.5 and 2023.10.4) where if the attacker removed the codeverifier’ parameter in the token request, authentik would allow the request to pass, thus circumventing PKCE’s protection. However, in the latest version of the software, another downgrade scenario is still possible: if the attacker removes the codechallenge’ parameter from the authorization request, authentik will also not do the PKCE check.

Note that this type of downgrade enables an attacker to perform a code injection attack, even if the OAuth client is using PKCE (which is supposed to protect against code injection attacks). To start the attack, the attacker must initiate the authorization process without that codechallenge’ parameter in the authorization request. But this is easy to do (just use a phishing site or email to trick the user into clicking on a link that the attacker controls – the authorization link without that codechallenge’ parameter).

The OAuth BCP (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-oauth-security-topics) explicitly mentions this particular attack in section 2.1.1: “Authorization servers MUST mitigate PKCE Downgrade Attacks by ensuring that a token request containing a codeverifier parameter is accepted only if a codechallenge parameter was present in the authorization request, see Section 4.8.2 for details.”

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

- Email us at security@goauthentik.io

authentik is an open-source identity provider. Prior to 2025.8.6, 2025.10.4, and 2025.12.4, when using a SAML Source that has the option Verify Assertion Signature under Verification Certificate enabled and not Verify Response Signature, or does not have the Encryption Certificate setting under Advanced Protocol settings configured, it was possible for an attacker to inject a malicious assertion before the signed assertion that authentik would use instead. authentik 2025.8.6, 2025.10.4, and 2025.12.4 fix this issue.

authentik is an open-source identity provider. Prior to versions 2025.12.6, 2026.2.4, and 2026.5.1, an attacker with the ability to change a source connection, and an account in one of the configured sources can log into any account. This issue has been patched in versions 2025.12.6, 2026.2.4, and 2026.5.1.

authentik is an open-source identity provider. Prior to 2026.2.6 and 2026.5.5, the Remote Access Control endpoint list returns every configured endpoint to any authenticated user regardless of which applications the user may access, and the response includes connection settings that can contain stored credentials. The endpoint listing does not apply the access controls governing the endpoints, and the connection flow does not confirm that an endpoint belongs to the Remote Access Control application through which it was launched. Any authenticated user can therefore read every endpoint together with its host and stored credentials and can open a connection to an endpoint belonging to another application. This exposes stored credentials for managed RDP, SSH, and VNC targets and grants interactive access to systems the user was never authorized to reach. Deployments that do not use the enterprise Remote Access Control provider are not affected. This issue is fixed in versions 2026.2.6 and 2026.5.5.

authentik is an open-source identity provider. Prior to 2025.10.4 and 2025.12.4, with a malformed cookie it was possible to bypass authentication when using forward authentication in the authentik Proxy Provider when used in conjunction with Traefik or Caddy as reverse proxy. When a malicious cookie was used, none of the authentik-specific X-Authentik- headers were set which depending on application can grant access to an attacker. authentik 2025.10.4 and 2025.12.4 fix this issue.

Summary authentik's SAML Source ACS endpoint is vulnerable to XML Signature Wrapping when validating upstream SAML responses. An attacker with any account at the upstream IdP can reuse a valid signed assertion to authenticate as another federated user. ### Patches authentik 2026.5.1, 2026.2.4 and 2025.12.6 fix this issue. ### Impact Affected: authentik deployments using a SAML Source for upstream SAML federation with signed assertions, or signed responses without signed assertions. Not affected: deployments that do not use SAML Source for upstream SAML federation. The SAML Source trusts that the verified XML signature belongs to the assertion or response that authentik later consumes. A crafted SAML response can make signature verification succeed against the attacker's original signed assertion while authentik reads identity data from a different forged assertion. An attacker first completes a legitimate login to the upstream IdP and captures the signed SAML response sent through their browser. They then submit a modified response to the ACS endpoint where the valid signature still verifies, but the consumed assertion contains a victim identifier or attacker-chosen attributes. The attacker can authenticate as a victim who has previously used the SAML Source, or as a local user matched by forged email or username when those matching modes are enabled. ### Workarounds Disable affected SAML Sources, or block access to their ACS endpoints. ### For more information If there are any questions or comments about this advisory: - Send an email to security@goauthentik.io

authentik is an open-source Identity Provider. Prior to versions 2023.4.3 and 2023.5.5, authentik does not verify the source of the X-Forwarded-For and X-Real-IP headers, both in the Python code and the go code. Only authentik setups that are directly accessible by users without a reverse proxy are susceptible to this. Possible spoofing of IP addresses in logs, downstream applications proxied by (built in) outpost, IP bypassing in custom flows if used.

This poses a possible security risk when someone has flows or policies that check the user's IP address, e.g. when they want to ignore the user's 2 factor authentication when the user is connected to the company network. A second security risk is that the IP addresses in the logfiles and user sessions are not reliable anymore. Anybody can spoof this address and one cannot verify that the user has logged in from the IP address that is in their account's log. A third risk is that this header is passed on to the proxied application behind an outpost. The application may do any kind of verification, logging, blocking or rate limiting based on the IP address, and this IP address can be overridden by anybody that want to.

Versions 2023.4.3 and 2023.5.5 contain a patch for this issue.

Authentik is an open-source Identity Provider. Authentik is a vulnerable to a reflected Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability via JavaScript-URIs in OpenID Connect flows with responsemode=formpost. This relatively user could use the described attacks to perform a privilege escalation. This vulnerability has been patched in versions 2023.10.6 and 2023.8.6.

authentik is an open-source identity provider. Prior to versions 2025.12.5 and 2026.2.3, the SAML source response processor (ResponseProcessor.parse()) does not validate the Conditions element on assertions. NotBefore, NotOnOrAfter, and AudienceRestriction are all ignored. This allows replay of expired assertions and acceptance of assertions intended for other service providers. This issue has been patched in versions 2025.12.5 and 2026.2.3.

authentik is an open-source identity provider. Prior to version 2026.2.3, the WS-Federation provider validates the user-supplied wreply parameter using a raw string prefix check rather than proper URL parsing. An attacker who can craft a login link can supply a wreply value on a different origin that passes the check (e.g. https://portal.example.com.evil.tld/), causing the victim's browser to POST the signed WS-Federation login response to attacker-controlled infrastructure. This issue has been patched in version 2026.2.3.