Directus Vulnerable to Information Leakage in Existing Collections

### Summary: An observable difference in error messaging was found in the Directus REST API. The `/items/{collection}` API returns different error messages for these two cases: 1. A user tries to access an existing collection which they are not authorized to access. 2. A user tries to access a non-existing collection. The two differing error messages leak the existence of collections to users which are not authorized to access these collections. ### Details: The following response returns an error message, when requesting a collection the user is not authorized to access. ``` GET /items/no-access { "errors": [ { "message": "You don't have permission to access collection \"no-access\" or it does not exist. Queried in root.", "extensions": { "reason": "You don't have permission to access collection \"no-access\" or it does not exist. Queried in root.", "code": "FORBIDDEN" } } ] } ``` The following response returns a different error message when requesting a collection which does not exist. ``` GET /items/does-not-exist { "errors": [ { "message": "You don't have permission to access this.", "extensions": { "code": "FORBIDDEN" } } ] } ``` ### Impact: The difference in errors between non-existent collections and collections blocked by permissions leak the existence of a collection to a user which is not authorized to access this object. ### Credit: Sebastian Krause - [Hackmanit GmbH](https://hackmanit.de)

Source published

13 Nov 2025 23:07:31 UTC

Source modified

15 Nov 2025 03:15:40 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:17:17 UTC

Source terms

GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0

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CVSS_V3 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Publisher rating · MODERATE