A high-severity vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-16337 affects dotCMS versions 21.02 through 26.06.22-03, allowing a low-privileged authenticated backend user to escalate privileges and achieve remote code execution. The issue stems from improper authorization in the ToolGroupResource layout-assignment endpoints and RoleAjax REST/DWR methods, which let a user self-assign the administrative Settings layout, grant themselves the CMS Administrator role, and then upload a crafted OSGi bundle whose BundleActivator can run arbitrary shell commands on the host.
dotCMS addressed the chain in core pull request #36344 by enforcing CMS Administrator checks on ToolGroupResource._addtouser, ToolGroupResource._removefromuser, RoleAjax.addUserToRole, and RoleAjax.removeUsersFromRole, while preserving limited self-service behavior for the gettingstarted onboarding layout. A follow-up hardening change moved authorization checks ahead of loadUserById calls to block unauthorized requests before database access, and unit tests were added for the new admin gates and onboarding exceptions.

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3 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
A CVE entry was published for CVE-2026-16337, describing an improper authorization vulnerability in dotCMS versions 21.02 through 26.06.22-03 that lets a low-privileged authenticated backend user escalate to CMS Administrator and ultimately execute arbitrary shell commands.
The security pull request adding CMS Administrator checks to the affected layout-assignment and role-grant endpoints, along with related hardening and onboarding-layout protections, was merged into the main branch.
dotCMS published pull request #36344 describing fixes for two authorization flaws in ToolGroupResource and RoleAjax that could be chained by an authenticated backend user to gain CMS Administrator privileges and achieve remote code execution via OSGi bundle upload.
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