GitHub Security Advisory: GHSA-jrc5-w569-h7h5
Package: thorsten/phpmyfaq (COMPOSER)
Severity: MODERATE (CVSS 4.3)
CWE: CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization
Vulnerable versions: = 4.1.1
Patched in: 4.1.2

Summary: phpMyFAQ: Ordinary Authenticated User Can Access Admin-Only API Endpoints Due to Insufficient Authorization Check in phpMyFAQ

Details:
### Summary

A review of `phpMyFAQ-main` uncovered an authorization issue in the `admin-api` routes.

Several backend endpoints only check whether the caller is logged in. They do not verify that the caller actually has backend or administrative privileges. As a result, a normal frontend user can access API endpoints that are clearly intended for administrative use.

During local reproduction, a regular user account was able to request `/admin/api/index.php/dashboard/versions` and receive a successful response from the backend management API.

This issue does not appear to give direct write access in the affected paths that were confirmed, so it should be treated as a backend information disclosure and privilege boundary failure rather than full admin compromise.

### Details

The access control split is visible in the controller base class:

```php
public function userIsAuthenticated(): void
{
    if (!$this->currentUser->isLoggedIn()) {
        throw new UnauthorizedHttpException('Unauthorized access.');
    }
}

protected function userHasPermission(PermissionType $permissionType): void
{
    // permission-based check
}
```

The problem is that several `Administration\Api` controllers use the weaker check even though the routes sit under the backend API namespace.

For example, `phpmyfaq/src/phpMyFAQ/Controller/Administration/Api/DashboardController.php` exposes:

```php
#[Route(path: 'dashboard/versions', name: 'admin.api.dashboard.versions', methods: ['GET'])]
public function versions(): JsonResponse
{
    $this->userIsAuthenticated();
    ...
}
```

The same pattern appears in other backend-facing controllers, including:

- `LdapController`
- `ElasticsearchController`
- `OpenSearchController`
- `UpdateController`

That matters because these endpoints are not part of the normal frontend feature set. They expose backend operational data such as version checks, upgrade state, LDAP configuration, health checks, and search backend status.

Three examples that stand out from an impact perspective are:

1. `GET /admin/api/index.php/ldap/configuration`

   This can expose LDAP server configuration, mapping settings, group settings, and general authentication-related options. Even with secrets masked, this is still useful internal infrastructure information.

2. `GET /admin/api/index.php/elasticsearch/statistics`

   If Elasticsearch is enabled, this can expose index names and search backend statistics that should normally stay in the admin area.

3. `GET /admin/api/index.php/health-check`

   This is part of the update and maintenance workflow and can reveal operational state that ordinary users should not be able to inspect.

In other words, the issue is not that guests can reach the backend. The issue is that any ordinary authenticated user can cross the frontend/backend privilege boundary.

### PoC

I reproduced this against a local Docker deployment of the project.

First, an unauthenticated request to the backend API is rejected:

```http
GET /