goauthentik / goauthentik/authentik

Impersonation allows elevating role

Open
#17,502 2 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
question
Dominant language
Python
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Forks
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

I tried to give the user manager permission to impersonate other users. However, this would enable the user manager to impersonate an admin, which could result in a security breach. Is there a way to restrict this, for example by only allowing impersonation of users with the same or lower permissions, or by not allowing admins to be impersonated in general?

**Version and Deployment (please complete the following information):**

- authentik version: 2025.8.3
- Deployment: docker-compose

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

No file, test, or entry point is named. Start by locating the impersonation permission and role checks in the authentik codebase, then define the expected behavior for same-or-lower permissions and protected administrators; done means an impersonator cannot gain privileges through impersonation and the behavior is covered by tests.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
docker-compose, python
Domain
authorization, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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