Craft CMS Vulnerable to Unauthorized Deletion of Destination Folders During Forced Moves

Overview

We have identified an authorization issue in Craft CMS where a forced folder move can delete a conflicting destination folder without destination delete permission.

Description

Craft CMS’s craft\\controllers\\AssetsController::actionMoveFolder() supports moving an asset folder into a destination parent folder. If a folder with the same name already exists at the destination, the action can be called with force=true to overwrite the destination.

The permission checks for this action allow:

• deleteAssets:<sourceVolumeUid> for the folder being moved
• createFolders:<destVolumeUid> for the destination parent folder
• saveAssets:<destVolumeUid> for the destination parent folder

The action does not require deleteAssets on the destination volume or destination conflict folder. When force=true and a name conflict exists, the code deletes the destination folder to resolve the conflict.

$this->requireVolumePermissionByFolder('deleteAssets', $folderToMove);
$this->requireVolumePermissionByFolder('createFolders', $destinationFolder);
$this->requireVolumePermissionByFolder('saveAssets', $destinationFolder);

src/controllers/AssetsController.php:L751-L753

Indexed destination conflicts are deleted via the Assets service:

$assets->deleteFoldersByIds($existingFolder->id);

src/controllers/AssetsController.php:L798-L798

Unindexed destination conflicts are deleted directly in the volume filesystem:

$targetVolume->deleteDirectory(rtrim($destinationFolder->path, '/') . '/' . $folderToMove->name);

src/controllers/AssetsController.php:L815

Impact

A user who cannot delete assets in a destination volume can still delete a destination folder and its contents by triggering a forced move into a conflicting name. This can cause asset loss, broken references in entries and fields that point to deleted assets, and operational disruption.

Affected packages

• craftcms/cms >= 5.0.0-RC1, < 5.9.21
• craftcms/cms >= 4.0.0-RC1, < 4.17.14

Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

• craftcms/cms 5.9.21
• craftcms/cms 4.17.14