Auth bypass in Wintercms Winter

CVE-2026-54256

Winter CMS is a content management system built on the Laravel PHP framework. In versions up to and including 1.2.12, the backend FileUpload form widget trusted an attacker-controlled file_id POST parameter when resolving the attachment it operates on, allowing an authenticated backend user to read and modify attachment records belonging to other users or records. The widget's getFileRecord() lookup resolved the posted id against the global system_files table without verifying that the file belonged to the widget's own relation, parent record, or deferred-binding session. Because all attachments share a single File model and table and attachment ids are sequential integers that are easily enumerated, a user reaching any form with a fileupload field, including the built-in My Account avatar field that requires no specific permission, could target arbitrary attachments to modify their title and description via onSaveAttachmentConfig and change their sort order via onSortAttachments, which passed posted ids straight to an unscoped update. CSRF tokens remain enforced, so exploitation requires a valid authenticated backend session with any level of access. This issue is fixed in version 1.2.13.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.4 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (13.8th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 14th percentile — 13.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-54256: held from 0.001 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.001

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-54256?
CVE-2026-54256 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Wintercms Winter, classified under Improper Access Control. CVSS score: 5.4/10. Published 2026-08-26.
How severe is CVE-2026-54256?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.4 out of 10.