PocketBase vulnerable to account pre-hijacking via OAuth2 unverfied->verified autolinking upgrade

Exploitation

No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.

CVSS 4.0

6.1 · CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:L/VI:H/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N · score source

EPSS

• CVE-2026-44166: 0.25% estimated exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 16.10 (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-03). This is a model estimate, not proof of exploitation or customer exposure.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

A pre-hijacking issue was discovered with the OAuth2 autolinking by Alardiians. In some situations, if an attacker knows the email address of the victim they can create and link an unverified PocketBase user in advance by authenticating with one of the OAuth2 app providers, e.g. "A". When the victim gets invited or decides to sign up to your app on their own with provider "B" (PocketBase OAuth2 auth requires to be with a different provider because we don't allow multiple OAuth2 accounts from the same provider to be associated to a single PocketBase user), the user created previously by the attacker will be autolinked, upgraded to "verified" and its old password reset. The upgrade flow operates within the expectations but the problem is that I forgot to clear the previous OAuth2 link(s) leaving the attacker to still have access to the initially created user. Or in other words, the vulnerability is similar to the mixed password + OAuth2 auth pre-hijacking issue that we had in the past…

Published by the source

5 May 2026, 21:17 UTC

Last modified by the source

13 May 2026, 16:26 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 15:20 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-pq7p-mc74-g65w

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# Patch Next advisory brief: CVE-2026-44166

Advisory: PocketBase vulnerable to account pre-hijacking via OAuth2 unverfied->verified autolinking upgrade
IDs: CVE-2026-44166, GHSA-pq7p-mc74-g65w
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/cve-2026-44166 (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:20 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: Medium (CVSS 6.1)
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase 0.37.4, 0.22.42. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- Go github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase: affected < 0.22.42; >= 0.30.0, < 0.37.4; fixed in 0.37.4, 0.22.42

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- Go github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase: check the installed version with your package manager.

## Supported action
Upgrade each affected component to a fixed version on its release line. For a transitive dependency, upgrade the parent package or add an override or constraint, then regenerate the lockfile. Redeploy every environment that ran an affected version.

## Required regression checks
- Run the test suite and a production build.
- Exercise the features that depend on github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase.
- Repeat the inspection and confirm that only fixed versions remain installed.

## Rollback considerations
- Keep the previous lockfile and deployment artifact. Rolling back reinstates the vulnerable version, so apply any documented mitigation while you fix forward.

## Unresolved questions
- Which deployments run an affected version?
- Exploitation status can change. Check again before lowering the priority.
- Mark the work resolved only after the fixed version is verified in production.

## Sources
- Verified: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-pq7p-mc74-g65w (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-pq7p-mc74-g65w lists affected ranges: Go github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase >=0 =0.30.0 <0.37.4)

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