CVE-2026-90697: Inventory Management System Auth Bypass

CVE-2026-90697 Overview

CVE-2026-90697 is an authorization bypass vulnerability in SourceCodester Inventory Management System 1.0. The flaw resides in the invoice.php file, where manipulation of the ID parameter allows an authenticated attacker to bypass access controls. The issue is classified under CWE-285: Improper Authorization and can be triggered remotely over the network. A public proof-of-concept has been disclosed on GitHub Gist, increasing the likelihood of opportunistic exploitation against exposed deployments.

Critical Impact
Attackers with low-privileged access can read invoice records belonging to other users by tampering with the ID parameter passed to invoice.php.

Affected Products

SourceCodester Inventory Management System 1.0
invoice.php component within the affected release
Deployments that expose the application to untrusted networks

Discovery Timeline

2026-09-14 - CVE-2026-90697 published to NVD
2026-09-15 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2026-90697

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability affects the invoice viewing workflow within SourceCodester Inventory Management System 1.0. The invoice.php script accepts an ID request parameter that references an invoice record but does not verify whether the authenticated session owns that record. This is a textbook Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) pattern mapped to [CWE-285]. An attacker who holds any valid low-privilege account can enumerate or guess sequential invoice identifiers to retrieve data belonging to other tenants or customers. Because the affected endpoint is reachable over HTTP and requires only a single request, exploitation scales easily against internet-exposed instances. Exposure is limited to confidentiality of invoice data; integrity and availability of the application are not directly impacted according to the published metrics.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing server-side authorization enforcement in invoice.php. The handler trusts the client-supplied ID value and returns the corresponding invoice without validating that the requesting session is entitled to view it. Object ownership and role-based access checks are not performed before the database lookup.

Attack Vector

An authenticated attacker sends a crafted HTTP request to invoice.php and iterates the ID parameter across values they do not own. The server responds with invoice content associated with the referenced identifier. No user interaction is required. A public proof-of-concept is documented at the GitHub Gist PoC and cataloged in the VulDB CVE-2026-90697 entry.

No verified exploit code is reproduced here. Refer to the referenced advisories for technical details.

Detection Methods for CVE-2026-90697

Indicators of Compromise

Repeated HTTP GET requests to invoice.php with sequentially incrementing or fuzzed ID parameter values from a single session or source IP.
Access to invoice.php?ID= records that do not correspond to invoices owned by the authenticated user.
Elevated request volume from low-privileged accounts targeting the invoice endpoint outside normal business workflows.

Detection Strategies

Enable verbose web server access logging for invoice.php and correlate ID parameter values against the session's authorized invoice set.
Deploy a web application firewall rule that flags rapid enumeration patterns on the ID parameter.
Instrument the application to emit an audit event whenever a session accesses an invoice belonging to a different user.

Monitoring Recommendations

Alert on anomalous access-to-ownership ratios per session for invoice records.
Monitor for scripted user-agents or non-browser clients issuing sequential requests to invoice endpoints.
Review authentication logs alongside invoice.php access logs to identify accounts probing beyond their normal scope.

How to Mitigate CVE-2026-90697

Immediate Actions Required

Restrict network exposure of the Inventory Management System to trusted networks or place it behind a VPN until a patched build is available.
Audit invoice.php access logs for the past 90 days to identify enumeration attempts against the ID parameter.
Force password rotation for accounts that may have interacted with the vulnerable endpoint if evidence of abuse is found.

Patch Information

No vendor patch has been published in the referenced advisories at the time of writing. Track updates via the SourceCodester Resource Hub and the VulDB Vulnerability #403230 entry for remediation guidance.

Workarounds

Add a server-side authorization check in invoice.php that verifies the authenticated session owns the requested invoice ID before returning data.
Replace numeric sequential invoice identifiers with unguessable UUIDs to reduce enumeration success.
Apply a reverse-proxy rule that requires a valid ownership token alongside the ID parameter, blocking direct access to the endpoint.

bash

# Example nginx rule to log and rate-limit invoice.php access for enumeration detection
limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=invoice_limit:10m rate=10r/m;

location = /invoice.php {
    limit_req zone=invoice_limit burst=5 nodelay;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/invoice_access.log combined;
    proxy_pass http://backend;
}