pac4j-core before 6.5.6 Authorization Bypass via Reversed Profile Type Check

pac4j-core before 6.5.6 contains an authentication bypass vulnerability in CheckProfileTypeAuthorizer that reverses the profile type validation logic. Attackers can authenticate through a weaker client and access resources requiring a stronger profile type by satisfying generic profile checks.

pac4j-core before 6.5.6 Open Redirect via Backslash Logout

pac4j-core before 6.5.6 contains an open redirect vulnerability in DefaultLogoutLogic.perform() that accepts backslash-prefixed logout redirect targets matching logoutUrlPattern. Attackers can craft logout links with backslash-prefixed external hosts that browsers normalize into network-path references, redirecting victims to attacker-controlled sites after logout.

pac4j-saml before 6.5.6 Session Destruction via Unsigned LogoutRequest

pac4j-saml before 6.5.6 does not require signature validation of SAML LogoutRequest messages in SAML2LogoutValidator.validateLogoutRequest(). When an IdP sends no SessionIndex, a session can be destroyed based solely on the NameID, allowing an unauthenticated attacker to submit an unsigned LogoutRequest with a guessed identifier (e.g., an email address used as NameID) to terminate a victim's SAML session.

pac4j-oidc before 6.5.6 Authentication Bypass via Access Token Substitution

pac4j-oidc before 6.5.6 accepts OIDC callbacks carrying only an access token without authorization code or ID token validation. Attackers can substitute access tokens minted for other clients to create authenticated sessions without proper issuer, audience, nonce, or subject verification.

pac4j-oidc before 6.5.6 Privilege Escalation via Unverified Keycloak Access Token

pac4j-oidc before 6.5.6 fails to verify access token signatures, issuers, audiences, or expiry when extracting Keycloak realm and client roles. Attackers can forge access tokens with administrative roles paired with valid ID tokens to bypass authorization checks in applications relying on pac4j role validation.

Cross-Site Request Forgery in PAC4J

PAC4J is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF). A malicious attacker can craft a specially designed website which, when visited by a user, will automatically submit a forged cross-site request with a token whose hash collides with the victim's legitimate CSRF token. Importantly, the attacker does not need to know the victim’s CSRF token or its hash prior to the attack. Collisions in the deterministic String.hashCode() function can be computed directly, reducing the effective token's security space to 32 bits. This bypasses CSRF protection, allowing profile updates, password changes, account linking, and any other state-changing operations to be performed without the victim's consent. This issue was fixed in PAC4J versions 5.7.10 and 6.4.1

LDAP Injection in PAC4J

PAC4J is vulnerable to LDAP Injection in multiple methods. A low-privileged remote attacker can inject crafted LDAP syntax into ID-based search parameters, potentially resulting in unauthorized LDAP queries and arbitrary directory operations. This issue was fixed in PAC4J versions 4.5.10, 5.7.10 and 6.4.1

pac4j-jwt JwtAuthenticator Authentication Bypass

pac4j-jwt versions prior to 4.5.9, 5.7.9, and 6.3.3 contain an authentication bypass vulnerability in JwtAuthenticator when processing encrypted JWTs that allows remote attackers to forge authentication tokens. Attackers who possess the server's RSA public key can create a JWE-wrapped PlainJWT with arbitrary subject and role claims, bypassing signature verification to authenticate as any user including administrators.

Deserialization of untrusted data in InternalAttributeHandler in pac4j

pac4j is a security framework for Java. `pac4j-core` prior to version 4.0.0 is affected by a Java deserialization vulnerability. The vulnerability affects systems that store externally controlled values in attributes of the `UserProfile` class from pac4j-core. It can be exploited by providing an attribute that contains a serialized Java object with a special prefix `{#sb64}` and Base64 encoding. This issue may lead to Remote Code Execution (RCE) in the worst case. Although a `RestrictedObjectInputStream` is in place, that puts some restriction on what classes can be deserialized, it still allows a broad range of java packages and potentially exploitable with different gadget chains. pac4j versions 4.0.0 and greater are not affected by this issue. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

If an OpenID Connect provider supports the "none" algorithm (i.e., tokens with no signature), pac4j v5.3.0 (and prior) does not refuse it without an explicit configuration on its side or for the "idtoken" response type which is not secure and violates the OpenID Core Specification. The "none" algorithm does not require any signature verification when validating the ID tokens, which allows the attacker to bypass the token validation by injecting a malformed ID token using "none" as the value of "alg" key in the header with an empty signature value.

The SAML identifier generated within SAML2Utils.java was found to make use of the apache commons-lang3 RandomStringUtils class which makes them predictable due to RandomStringUtils PRNG's algorithm not being cryptographically strong. This issue only affects the 3.X release of pac4j-saml.