GitHub Advisoryadvisory · Packagist, Go
GHSA-8r6w-3qq5-4p4r Pterodactyl's improper JWT scoping allows subuser to upload files when not explicitly granted `file.create` permissions
HIGH
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2026-54593
- Ecosystem
- Packagist, Go
- Packages
- pterodactyl/panel, github.com/pterodactyl/wings
- Severity
- High
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-1259, CWE-1270
- Reviewed
- 2026-07-28
Affected packages
• Packagist pterodactyl/panel: < 1.12.3 → fixed in 1.12.3
• Go github.com/pterodactyl/wings: < 1.12.2 → fixed in 1.12.2
Description
Summary
A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the Wings /upload/file endpoint due to insufficient validation of panel-signed JWTs. Wings accepts any valid panel-signed JWT containing `server_uuid`, `user_uuid`, and `unique_id`, regardless of the token’s intended purpose. Because the Panel issues JWTs with these same claims for other lower-privilege operations (such as WebSocket authentication and file download links), an authenticated subuser can reuse one of those tokens to upload arbitrary files without possessing the required `file.create` permission.
Impact
Any subuser with permission to connect to a server's console, download files, or download backups could reuse those tokens to upload arbitrary files to the _same server_. A user that does not have access to a server as a subuser is not able to arbitrarily upload files.
Details
The panel generated JWT tokens for various purposes:
• https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel/blob/0f82c105201b192d229f6abd5827e2ee7e672a05/app/Services/Backups/DownloadLinkService.php#L33-L36
• https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel/blob/0f82c105201b192d229f6abd5827e2ee7e672a05/app/Http/Controllers/Api/Client/Servers/FileUploadController.php#L45
• https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel/blob/0f82c105201b192d229f6abd5827e2ee7e672a05/app/Http/Controllers/Api/Client/Servers/WebsocketController.php#L58-L61
• https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel/blob/0f82c105201b192d229f6abd5827e2ee7e672a05/app/Http/Controllers/Api/Client/Servers/FileController.php#L82-L85
Though as the actual purpose is not conveyed part of the JWT tokens, this introduces this vulnerability of being able to do non-intended actions due to the expected fields (i.e. `server_uuid`) on most endpoints being the same when parsing it on wings' side.
PoC
Create a new subuser that has the minimal amount of permissions on a server (`websocket.connect`). As that subuser, retrieve a websocket JWT token from the `GET /api/client/servers/[...]/websocket` endpoint (in my case, I manually just make a request under that user's browser session; you can probably just resend the /websocket request in browser console to get a fresh unused token). Using that websocket token, we can abuse this by directly using it in the `/upload/file` endpoint of the wings node instead of using it for websocket authentication:
```python3
import requests
wings_url = 'http://[...]:8080'
websocket_token = '[...]'
res = requests.post(f'{wings_url}/upload/file', params = {
'token': websocket_token,
}, files = {
'files': ('file-upload.txt', b'Hello, World!'),
})
print(res.status_code, res.content)
```
Observe, that even though our subuser never has permissions outside viewing the console, they are able to write arbitrary files in the server. This pattern happens in a lot of other action, but this is probably the most interesting one.
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2026-54593 Pterodactyl is a free, open-source game server management panel. vulnerability
References
- https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel/security/advisories/GHSA-8r6w-3qq5-4p4r web
- https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel/pull/5636 web
- https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel/commit/7ffcd636310bb72b54bac3280d2a15e727feded7 web
- https://github.com/pterodactyl/wings/commit/d0ddc80844479302abdaf9654de3bacd511c0f5c web
- https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel package