CVE-2025-65782 is an authorization vulnerability identified in Wekan, an open-source kanban board system widely used for project management and team collaboration. The vulnerability exists in versions up to 18.15 and was addressed in version 18.16. The flaw arises from improper authorization checks during card update operations, specifically in the handling of vote arrays (vote.positive and vote.negative). Board members, and potentially other authenticated users, can exploit this flaw to add or remove arbitrary user IDs within these vote arrays. This manipulation enables vote forgery, allowing attackers to cast unauthorized votes or remove legitimate votes, thereby compromising the integrity of the voting mechanism. The vulnerability requires the attacker to be authenticated but does not require elevated privileges beyond that. There is no indication of direct impact on confidentiality or availability, and no known exploits have been reported in the wild as of the publication date. The vulnerability undermines trust in collaborative decision-making processes, which rely on accurate and authorized voting. The lack of a CVSS score necessitates an assessment based on the impact on integrity, ease of exploitation, and scope of affected systems. Since Wekan is an open-source tool used globally, organizations relying on it for critical workflows may face risks if they do not apply the patch or implement compensating controls.

For European organizations, this vulnerability primarily threatens the integrity of collaborative workflows, especially in environments where Wekan is used for decision-making or project prioritization through voting. Unauthorized vote manipulation could lead to incorrect project prioritization, resource misallocation, or compromised team consensus. While the vulnerability does not directly expose sensitive data or disrupt service availability, the erosion of trust in the voting process can have downstream effects on organizational efficiency and governance. Organizations in sectors with stringent compliance or audit requirements may face challenges demonstrating the integrity of their decision-making processes if such manipulations occur. The impact is more pronounced in organizations with large, distributed teams relying heavily on Wekan for coordination. Since exploitation requires authentication, insider threats or compromised user accounts pose the greatest risk. The absence of known exploits suggests a window for proactive mitigation before widespread abuse.

The primary mitigation is to upgrade Wekan installations to version 18.16 or later, where the authorization flaw has been fixed. Organizations should enforce strict access controls and regularly review user permissions to limit the number of users with board member privileges. Implement monitoring and logging of vote changes to detect anomalous modifications indicative of vote forgery. Employ multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce the risk of compromised user accounts being used to exploit this vulnerability. Conduct periodic audits of voting data integrity and consider implementing additional application-layer validation or custom hooks to verify vote authenticity if upgrading is delayed. Educate users about the importance of safeguarding credentials and recognizing suspicious activity within collaboration tools. Finally, maintain an incident response plan that includes procedures for addressing potential vote manipulation incidents.