GHSA-j6xf-jwrj-v5qp
Coder vulnerable to privilege escalation could lead to a cross workspace compromise
Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go | github.com/coder/coder/v2 | >= 2.22.0, < 2.24.4 | 2.24.4 |
| Go | github.com/coder/coder/v2 | >= 2.25.0, < 2.25.2 | 2.25.2 |
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
## Summary
Insecure session handling opened room for a privilege escalation scenario in which [prebuilt workspaces](https://coder.com/docs/admin/templates/extending-templates/prebuilt-workspaces) could be compromised by abusing a shared system identity.
## Details
Coder automatically generates a session token for a user when a workspace is started. It is automatically exposed via [`coder_workspace_owner.session_token`](https://registry.terraform.io/providers/coder/coder/latest/docs/data-sources/workspace_owner#session_token-1). Prebuilt workspaces are initially owned by a built-in `prebuilds` system user.
When a prebuilt workspace is claimed, a new session token is generated for the user that claimed the workspace, but the previous session token for the `prebuilds` user was not expired. Any Coder workspace templates that persist this automatically generated session token are potentially impacted.
For example, the [coder-login module](https://github.com/coder/registry/blob/8677e7d52b374b025c4820d09049dc6b008beee8/registry/coder/modules/coder-login/run.sh) allows template authors to automatically configure the coder CLI to be authenticated with the Coder deployment.
This causes a script to be run on workspace startup that runs the command `coder login` using the automatically generated user session token c.f. [https://github.com/coder/registry/blob/8677e7d52b374b025c4820d09049dc6b008beee8/registry/coder/modules/coder-login/main.tf#L23](https://github.com/coder/registry/blob/8677e7d52b374b025c4820d09049dc6b008beee8/registry/coder/modules/coder-login/main.tf#L23)
This module was originally written before the inception of the [prebuilds](https://coder.com/docs/admin/templates/extending-templates/prebuilt-workspaces) feature in Coder, which essentially creates a "pre-warmed" pool of workspaces owned by a particular `prebuilds` system user.
When this module is invoked on a prebuilt workspace, it causes the Coder CLI inside the workspace to persist the session token for the `prebuilds` user to disk. Because the `coder-login` module checks if the CLI is authenticated, the script exits early before updating the session token, leaving the Coder CLI authenticated as the `prebuilds`user upon claim:
## Impact
> Important: **Deployments that have never utilized the [prebuilds](https://coder.com/docs/admin/templates/extending-templates/prebuilt-workspaces) feature are not affected by this vulnerability.**
This vulnerability requires a previously authenticated user to claim a prebuilt workspace from a template configured to store the prebuilds user session token as described above.
The `prebuilds` user has no specific roles, so its credential has the same level of access as a regular member user, meaning a user with the `prebuilds` user's credential can move laterally to any other prebuilt workspace, or create new workspaces as the `prebuilds` user.
This means that a malicious authenticated actor can potentially execute code on other workspaces owned by the `prebuilds` user and potentially access information of other users once they claim a previously poisoned workspace.
## Remediation
Fixed in https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/19667
Note that prebuilt workspaces claimed previous to the fix may have been affected by this vulnerability. It is recommended that users re-create their workspace if it was created from a prebuild.
To identify potentially affected workspaces, run the following SQL query against the Coder database:
```sql
SELECT w.id, w.name, w.owner_id, u.email
FROM workspaces w
LEFT JOIN users u ON u.id = w.owner_id
WHERE w.owner_id <> 'c42fdf75-3097-471c-8c33-fb52454d81c0'::uuid
AND NOT w.deleted
AND EXISTS (
SELECT 1
FROM workspace_builds AS wb
WHERE wb.workspace_id = w.id
AND wb.initiator_id = 'c42fdf75-3097-471c-8c33-fb52454d81c0'::uuid
);
```
> Previous manually created tokens for the prebuilds user are left as-is. You may wish to review these via `coder tokens list --all`
---
[Premium license](https://coder.com/docs/admin/licensing) customers can also take advantage of the [audit logs](https://coder.com/docs/admin/security/audit-logs) feature to query actions performed by the `prebuilds` user.
Following [filter](https://coder.com/docs/admin/security/audit-logs#how-to-filter-audit-logs) can be used to verify if no [API keys](https://coder.com/docs/reference/api/users#create-token-api-key) were created by the `prebuilds` user
> would indicate a potentially malicious action aimed at achieving [persistence](https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/)
```
username:prebuilds resource_type:api_key
```
Following [filter](https://coder.com/docs/admin/security/audit-logs#how-to-filter-audit-logs) can be used to list all *write* operations performed by the `prebuilds` user (including failed attempts to update various settings)
```
username:prebuilds action:write
```
### Patched versions
- [2.24.4](https://github.com/coder/coder/releases/tag/v2.24.4)
- [2.25.2](https://github.com/coder/coder/releases/tag/v2.25.2)
- [2.26.0](https://github.com/coder/coder/releases/tag/v2.26.0)
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/coder/coder/security/advisories/GHSA-j6xf-jwrj-v5qp
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-58437
- https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/19667
- https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/19668
- https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/19669
- https://github.com/coder/coder/commit/06cbb2890f453cd522bb2158a6549afa3419c276
- https://github.com/coder/coder/commit/20d67d7d7191a4fd5d36a61c6fc1e23ab59befc0
- https://github.com/coder/coder/commit/ec660907faa0b0eae20fa2ba58ce1733f5f4b35a
- https://github.com/coder/coder