CVE-2021-41189

Workarounds

In 7.0, temporarily disable the ability for community or collection administrators to manage permissions or workflows settings, i.e. set the following properties in your local.cfg / dspace.cfg file

core.authorization.collection-admin.policies = false
core.authorization.community-admin.policies = false
core.authorization.community-admin.collection.workflows = false

Once upgraded to 7.1, these settings can be safely reverted to the default values of true.

References

Discovered during investigation of https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/7928

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

• Email us at [email protected]

Any community or collection administrator can escalate their permission up to become system administrator.

This vulnerability only existed in 7.0 and does not impact 6.x or below.

The application does not correctly enforce access controls, allowing a principal to access resources or operations beyond their granted permissions. Typical impact: unauthorized data access or execution of privileged operations.

CVE-2021-41189 has a CVSS score of 7.2 (High). The vector is network-reachable, high privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (7.1); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Kodem intelligence

Fix is included in 7.1. Please upgrade to 7.1 at your earliest convenience.

1. What is CVE-2021-41189? CVE-2021-41189 is a high-severity incorrect authorization vulnerability in org.dspace:dspace-api (maven), affecting versions >= 7.0, < 7.1. It is fixed in 7.1. The application does not correctly enforce access controls, allowing a principal to access resources or operations beyond their granted permissions.
2. How severe is CVE-2021-41189? CVE-2021-41189 has a CVSS score of 7.2 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
3. Which versions of org.dspace:dspace-api are affected by CVE-2021-41189? org.dspace:dspace-api (maven) versions >= 7.0, < 7.1 is affected.
4. Is there a fix for CVE-2021-41189? Yes. CVE-2021-41189 is fixed in 7.1. Upgrade to this version or later.
5. Is CVE-2021-41189 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2021-41189 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
6. What actually determines whether CVE-2021-41189 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
7. How do I fix CVE-2021-41189? Upgrade org.dspace:dspace-api to 7.1 or later.