CVE-2024-55634: Drupal Core Privilege Escalation Flaw

CVE-2024-55634 Overview

A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in Drupal Core that allows authenticated attackers to elevate their permissions beyond their intended authorization level. This vulnerability affects multiple major versions of Drupal Core and poses a significant risk to organizations running vulnerable Drupal installations.

Critical Impact

This privilege escalation vulnerability allows low-privileged authenticated users to gain unauthorized access to high-value confidential data and modify sensitive information within Drupal installations.

Affected Products

• Drupal Core versions 8.0.0 through 10.2.10
• Drupal Core versions 10.3.0 through 10.3.8
• Drupal Core versions 11.0.0 through 11.0.7

Discovery Timeline

• 2024-12-10 - CVE-2024-55634 published to NVD
• 2025-06-02 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2024-55634

Vulnerability Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-178 (Improper Handling of Case Sensitivity), indicating that the root cause involves inconsistent handling of case-sensitive data within Drupal Core's authorization mechanisms. The flaw can be exploited remotely over the network by authenticated users with low-level privileges, requiring no user interaction.

The vulnerability enables attackers to bypass access control restrictions, potentially gaining access to high-confidentiality and high-integrity resources. While availability impact is not affected, the ability to read and modify unauthorized data presents severe security implications for Drupal-based websites and applications.

Root Cause

The vulnerability stems from improper handling of case sensitivity (CWE-178) within Drupal Core's permission and access control system. This weakness occurs when the application fails to properly normalize or consistently handle case differences in user input, identifiers, or internal data structures used for authorization decisions. Attackers can exploit these inconsistencies to bypass security checks that rely on case-sensitive comparisons.

Attack Vector

The attack requires network access to a vulnerable Drupal installation and valid low-privilege credentials. An authenticated attacker can exploit the case sensitivity handling flaw to manipulate authorization checks and escalate their privileges within the system. The attack complexity is low, making it accessible to attackers without specialized knowledge.

The vulnerability allows attackers to potentially:

• Access administrative functions normally restricted to higher-privilege roles
• Read confidential content and user data
• Modify protected content and system configurations

Detection Methods for CVE-2024-55634

Indicators of Compromise

• Unusual access patterns from low-privileged user accounts attempting to reach administrative endpoints
• Authorization log entries showing unexpected permission grants or role changes
• Audit trail anomalies indicating users accessing resources beyond their normal scope
• Database modifications to permission or role tables not matching administrative actions

Detection Strategies

• Monitor Drupal watchdog logs for access denied entries followed by successful access to the same resources
• Implement alerting on permission escalation events or unexpected role assignments
• Deploy web application firewall rules to detect case manipulation patterns in URLs and request parameters
• Review authentication and authorization logs for anomalous user behavior patterns

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable comprehensive Drupal logging including access logs and security events
• Implement real-time alerting for administrative function access by non-admin users
• Deploy file integrity monitoring on Drupal core files and configuration directories
• Configure SIEM rules to correlate authentication events with sensitive resource access

How to Mitigate CVE-2024-55634

Immediate Actions Required

• Upgrade Drupal Core to version 10.2.11 or later for 10.2.x installations
• Upgrade Drupal Core to version 10.3.9 or later for 10.3.x installations
• Upgrade Drupal Core to version 11.0.8 or later for 11.0.x installations
• Review user accounts and permissions for any signs of unauthorized privilege escalation
• Audit access logs for suspicious activity prior to patching

Patch Information

Drupal has released security patches addressing this vulnerability in the official security advisory SA-CORE-2024-004. Organizations should prioritize applying these updates as they address the case sensitivity handling flaw that enables privilege escalation.

Patched versions:

• 10.2.11 - For Drupal 10.2.x branch
• 10.3.9 - For Drupal 10.3.x branch
• 11.0.8 - For Drupal 11.0.x branch

Workarounds

• Implement strict web application firewall rules to normalize case in requests and block suspicious patterns
• Review and restrict user permissions to minimum necessary privileges (principle of least privilege)
• Enable additional access logging and monitoring until patches can be applied
• Consider temporarily disabling non-essential user accounts if immediate patching is not feasible

# Drupal update commands using Composer
composer update drupal/core --with-dependencies
drush updatedb
drush cache:rebuild