Summary
ZITADEL: Improper Role Revocation on Granted Projects during Multiple Role Deletions
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.
Affected Versions
- 4.x:
4.0.0through4.15.3(including RC versions) - 3.x:
3.0.0through3.4.12(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.
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 for reporting this vulnerability.
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.
CVE-2026-76081 has a CVSS score of 5.5 (Medium). 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 (4.16.0); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
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.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2026-76081? CVE-2026-76081 is a medium-severity security vulnerability in github.com/zitadel/zitadel (go), affecting versions < 4.16.0. It is fixed in 4.16.0.
- How severe is CVE-2026-76081? CVE-2026-76081 has a CVSS score of 5.5 (Medium). 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.
- Which versions of github.com/zitadel/zitadel are affected by CVE-2026-76081? github.com/zitadel/zitadel (go) versions < 4.16.0 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-76081? Yes. CVE-2026-76081 is fixed in 4.16.0. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2026-76081 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2026-76081 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-2026-76081 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-2026-76081? Upgrade
github.com/zitadel/zitadelto 4.16.0 or later.