CVE-2022-41948: Privilege Chaining with the user admin role in dhis2-core
Noroxi assessment
Priority: Monitor (action score 28/100)
- The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
- Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 0.64% (FIRST EPSS); higher than 50.6% of all records.
- Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it. Administrator privileges are required. No user action is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
- According to the record, no fixed version is available yet.
Low priority for now. Update when a fix is released; follow the vendor's advisory.
Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it
Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS
DHIS 2 is an open source information system for data capture, management, validation, analytics and visualization. Affected versions are subject to a privilege escalation vulnerability. A DHIS2 user with authority to manage users can assign superuser privileges to themself by manually crafting an HTTP PUT request. Only users with the following DHIS2 user role authorities can exploit this vulnerability. Note that in many systems the only users with user admin privileges are also superusers. In these cases, the escalation vulnerability does not exist. The vulnerability is only exploitable by attackers who can authenticate as users with the user admin authority. As this is usually a small and relatively trusted set of users, exploit vectors will often be limited. DHIS2 administrators should upgrade to the following hotfix releases: 2.36.12.1, 2.37.8.1, 2.38.2.1, 2.39.0.1. The only known workaround to this issue is to avoid the assignment of the user management authority to any users until the patch has been applied.
- Published
- Dec 8, 2022
- Updated
- Jun 17, 2026
- EPSS
- 0.6% · 50th percentile
- CWE
- CWE-269
Report tools
Action score
28
Monitor
Low priority for now.
- CVSS
- 28 / 40 · 7.2 / 10
- CISA KEV
- 0 / 30 · Not listed
- EPSS
- 0 / 30 · 0.6%
CISA SSVC decision
- Exploitation
- none
- Automatable
- no
- Technical impact
- total
Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.
CNA vs NVD score
- NVD
- 7.2
- CNA · GitHub_M
- 6.7
- 0.5 point gap
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L
The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.
Get told when this record changes
- Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
- No public exploit code on record
- No fixed version yet
If any of these changes, we'll tell you in the daily email digest.
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Noroxi analysis
What does it mean in your environment?
The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.
We use this product, ask for helpAffected systems
Is your version affected?
Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.
| Vendor | Product | CPE |
|---|---|---|
| dhis2 | dhis 2 | cpe:2.3:a:dhis2:dhis_2 |
Affected versions
NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.
- dhis2 dhis 22.34.0 and later · before 2.36.12.1
- dhis2 dhis 22.37.0 and later · before 2.37.8.1
- dhis2 dhis 22.38.0 and later · before 2.38.2.1
- dhis2 dhis 22.39.0
Versions reported by the vendor
Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (GitHub_M). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.
dhis2 dhis2-core
- < 2.36.12.1, >= 2.37.0.0, < 2.37.8.1, >= 2.38.0.0, < 2.38.2.1, >= 2.39.0.0, < 2.39.0.1affected
Same product
dhis2: all recordsOther highest-scoring records for the same primary product.
- CVE-2021-39179SQL Injection in DHIS2 Tracker API36Monitor
- CVE-2022-24848SQL Injection in DHIS2's in OrgUnit program association35Monitor
- CVE-2021-41187SQL Injection in DHIS2 Tracker API35Monitor
Published before and after this one in the same product
- ← EarlierCVE-2022-41949Dec 8, 2022 · Semi-blind Server-Side Request Forgery in dhis2-core17Monitor
- ← EarlierCVE-2022-41947Dec 8, 2022 · Cross-site Scripting with user-uploaded files in dhis2-core21Monitor
- Later →CVE-2023-31138May 9, 2023 · DHIS2 Core vulnerable to Improper Access Control with PATCH requests26Monitor
Remediation
Which version to upgrade to
Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.
No fix version is recorded for this entry. Check the references for vendor advisories.
Exploit status
No known public exploit
No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.
Research context
For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.
Timeline
From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.
No dated events beyond publication.
No history yet (it accumulates with the daily EPSS job).
Patch and commit links
Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.
No commit or PR link among the references.
Credits
All researchersFinders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.
No credits in the CNA record.
Variant candidates
Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.
No nightly-computed relations.
Chain candidates
An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.
—
Bug bounty scope
No known public program.
Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).
Technical details
Attack conditions
- Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
- Administrator privileges are required.
- No user action is required.
- No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
If successful
- Confidentiality
- high · data can be read
- Integrity
- high · data or configuration can be modified
- Availability
- high · the service can be disrupted
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality impact
- High
- Integrity impact
- High
- Availability impact
- High
Weakness class (CWE)
CWE-269 · Improper Privilege ManagementCVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
nvd-primary
Root cause
To simplify setup, a service account is granted broad, cluster-wide permissions. The principle of least privilege is skipped during installation.
The bug in code
The whole CWE-269 classA representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.
Vulnerable
kind: ClusterRole
rules:
- apiGroups: ["*"]
resources: ["*"]
verbs: ["*"]Fixed
kind: Role
metadata:
namespace: lodos-system
rules:
- apiGroups: ["apps"]
resources: ["deployments"]
verbs: ["get", "list", "update"]Attack context
MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.
Change log
No changes recorded on tracked fields yet. Score, KEV, exploit maturity and fix status changes appear here.
References
Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.