ZITADEL: Improper Role Revocation on Granted Projects during Multiple Role Deletions

ZITADEL is an open source identity management platform. Prior to version 4.16.0, a bug in how ZITADEL updates permissions when multiple project roles are deleted at the same time can cause some user permissions to be missed. This issue specifically affects User Grants on Granted Projects (projects shared between different organizations), potentially allowing users to keep access rights that were supposed to be completely removed. This issue has been fully resolved in version 4.16.0. There are no configuration workarounds. Upgrading to a patched version is the only way to trigger the automatic cleanup migration. Those who cannot upgrade immediately should manually review user permissions specifically for Granted Projects where multiple roles were recently deleted.

ZITADEL is an open source identity management platform. Prior to version 4.16.0, a bug in how ZITADEL updates permissions when multiple project roles are deleted at the same time can cause some user permissions to be missed. This issue specifically affects User Grants on Granted Projects (projects shared between different organizations), potentially allowing users to keep access rights that were supposed to be completely removed. This issue has been fully resolved in version 4.16.0. There are no configuration workarounds. Upgrading to a patched version is the only way to trigger the automatic cleanup migration. Those who cannot upgrade immediately should manually review user permissions specifically for Granted Projects where multiple roles were recently deleted.

ZITADEL is an open source identity management platform. Prior to version 4.16.0, a bug in how ZITADEL updates permissions when multiple project roles are deleted at the same time can cause some user permissions to be missed. This issue specifically affects User Grants on Granted Projects (projects shared between different organizations), potentially allowing users to keep access rights that were supposed to be completely removed. This issue has been fully resolved in version 4.16.0. There are no configuration workarounds. Upgrading to a patched version is the only way to trigger the automatic cleanup migration. Those who cannot upgrade immediately should manually review user permissions specifically for Granted Projects where multiple roles were recently deleted.

### Summary A bug in how ZITADEL updates permissions when multiple project roles are deleted at the same time can cause some user permissions to be missed. This issue specifically affects **User Grants on Granted Projects** (projects shared between different organizations), **potentially** allowing users to keep access rights that were supposed to be completely removed. ### Impact When an organization shares a project with another organization (a Project Grant), administrators can assign specific roles to users via a User Grant. If multiple roles are deleted from that project at the same time, a background process runs to strip those roles from the assigned users. Because of an error in how ZITADEL loops through a user's list of roles during this specific cross-organization cleanup, deleting two or more roles at once **might** cause the system to accidentally skip over some of them. > **Scope Note:** This vulnerability only affects **User Grants on Granted Projects**. Direct project roles and global organization roles are not impacted. The risk depends entirely on what the skipped role allowed the user to do—if it was an administrative or high-privilege role, the user **could potentially** retain those elevated permissions within that granted project even after the role was officially deleted. ### Affected Versions * **4.x:** `4.0.0` through `4.15.3` (including RC versions) * **3.x:** `3.0.0` through `3.4.12` (including RC versions) Note: The 3.x release channel has reached End-of-Life (EOL) for security updates and will not receive a backported patch. ### Patches & Resolution This issue has been fully resolved in the latest releases. The update fixes the role-removal logic to ensure no roles are skipped. Furthermore, **this patch includes an automatic database migration**. When you update, the system will automatically scan your database, find any user permissions on granted projects that **may** have been accidentally left behind by this bug, and correct them. - **4.x**: Upgrade to $\ge$[4.16.0](https://github.com/zitadel/zitadel/releases/tag/v4.16.0) - **3.x**: Update to $\ge$[4.16.0](https://github.com/zitadel/zitadel/releases/tag/v4.16.0) (or check out workarounds) ### Workarounds There are no configuration workarounds. Upgrading to a patched version is the recommended solution and only way to trigger the automatic cleanup migration. If you cannot upgrade immediately, we recommend manually reviewing user permissions specifically for your **Granted Projects** where multiple roles were recently deleted. ### Questions If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please reach out to us at [email protected]. ### Credits Thanks to [AyushParkara](https://github.com/AyushParkara) for reporting this vulnerability.

ZITADEL: Improper Role Revocation on Granted Projects during Multiple Role Deletions in github.com/zitadel/zitadel. NOTE: The source advisory for this report contains additional versions that could not be automatically mapped to standard Go module versions. (If this is causing false-positive reports from vulnerability scanners, please suggest an edit to the report.) The additional affected modules and versions are: github.com/zitadel/zitadel before v4.16.0.