OpenPanel Privilege Escalation via Missing Access Validation

Executive Summary

OpenPanel has a privilege escalation vulnerability where read-only project access is not properly enforced. Out of 29 mutating procedures, only 3 correctly block read-only users, allowing them to perform destructive actions like deleting projects, reports, and dashboards, publishing private analytics publicly, and modifying alerting rules.

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Detection Guidance

To detect this vulnerability, review OpenPanel's mutation procedures for missing access level checks. Check if read-only users can execute actions like project.delete, report.delete, share.createReport, or share.createDashboard. Audit the getProjectAccess function to ensure it returns the correct AccessLevel enum values consistently.

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Impact Analysis

If you are a read-only user in OpenPanel, an attacker could exploit this to delete your work, destroy projects, expose private data publicly, or alter settings. The impact is limited to unauthorized actions within projects you have access to, but it bypasses intended restrictions.

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Compliance Impact

This vulnerability could lead to unauthorized data exposure or deletion, violating GDPR's data integrity and confidentiality requirements or HIPAA's access control rules. Organizations using OpenPanel may face compliance violations if sensitive data is compromised through this flaw.

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Mitigation Strategies

Immediately update OpenPanel to the latest version that includes centralized access control enforcement. Implement a middleware layer to validate write-level access for all mutation procedures. Ensure getProjectAccess returns unambiguous access levels and block read-only users from executing destructive actions.

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