VulnerabilityPublished 26 Aug 2026Updated 29 Aug 2026

CVE-2026-32639: wintercms winter · Authentication Bypass by Alternate Name

Affects wintercms winterSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.8 Medium : upgrade to 1.2.13 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.8Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS

0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 39% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

Exploitation: No evidence of active exploitation and no public proof of concept
Automatable: Attackers cannot reliably automate steps 1–4 of the kill chain
Technical impact: Limited control over the software or limited information exposure

CISA SSVC assessment, 2026-08-29.

Patch

Available – fixed in 1.2.13

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: High
User Interaction: None
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: None
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: High: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable component that could affect component-wide settings and files.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 26 Aug 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade wintercms winter to 1.2.13.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
wintercmswinter	Affected <1.2.13	Fixed in 1.2.13

Description

Winter CMS is a content management system built on the Laravel PHP framework. In versions up to and including 1.2.12, the CMS section's Theme Editor AJAX handlers did not enforce per-template-type permission checks, allowing a backend user with any single CMS permission to act on template types outside their authorized scope. The CMS controller gated access to the section as a whole using OR-logic across its five permissions, but individual handlers such as onSave(), onDelete(), and onDeleteTemplates() did not verify that the user held the specific permission for the requested template type, so a user with only cms.manage_pages could craft AJAX requests to delete layouts, modify partials, or read content files. Separately, the AssetList widget was registered for any user who passed the controller gate regardless of the cms.manage_assets permission, and its onUpload() handler omitted the theme-validation call present on the other mutating handlers, permitting unauthorized file uploads into the active theme's asset directory. Exploitation requires an authenticated backend account holding at least one of the CMS Theme Editor permissions. This issue is fixed in version 1.2.13.

CWE-289Authentication Bypass by Alternate Name (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessOWASP Top 10 A07:2025: Authentication Failures (opens in a new tab)
The product performs authentication based on the name of a resource being accessed, or the name of the actor performing the access, but it does not properly check all possible names for that resource or actor.
Architecture and Design · Input Validation
Avoid making decisions based on names of resources (e.g. files) if those resources can have alternate names.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Implementation · Input Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
OWASP Authentication (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V2.8.5 (opens in a new tab)
V2.8.4 (opens in a new tab)
V9.2.3 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

WeaknessesCWE-289

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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