Summary
n8n: Improper Authorization Allows Authenticated Users to Assign Workflows to Folders in Other Projects
Workarounds
If upgrading is not immediately possible, administrators should consider the following temporary mitigations:
- Restrict project membership and workflow creation permissions to fully trusted users only.
This workaround does not fully remediate the risk and should only be used as a short-term mitigation measure.
Impact
An authenticated user with permission to create workflows in one project could bypass project/folder authorization boundaries during workflow creation. By supplying a crafted request payload, the user could associate a newly created workflow with a folder belonging to a different project they do not have access to.
The workflow itself remains in the attacker's project and is not visible to the target project's members. The target project's folder ownership is not changed, and no data from the target project is exposed. The impact is limited to a logical integrity violation of the target project's folder structure at the database level.
This issue affects instances with multi-project and folder support enabled.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
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. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
Already deployed Kodem?
See it in your environmentNew to Kodem? Get a demo →Remediation advice
The issue has been fixed in n8n version 2.28.0. Users should upgrade to this version or later to remediate the vulnerability.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2026-59253? CVE-2026-59253 is a medium-severity security vulnerability in n8n (npm), affecting versions < 2.28.0. It is fixed in 2.28.0.
- Which versions of n8n are affected by CVE-2026-59253? n8n (npm) versions < 2.28.0 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-59253? Yes. CVE-2026-59253 is fixed in 2.28.0. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2026-59253 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2026-59253 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
- What actually determines whether CVE-2026-59253 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.
- How do I fix CVE-2026-59253? Upgrade
n8nto 2.28.0 or later.