GHSA-XW6W-GCFP-CF8M
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-10-22 16:18 – Updated: 2026-10-22 16:18Summary
Deleting an authentication token through TokenProxy silently deletes nothing. The call raises no
exception and reports success, the database row survives, and the token keeps authenticating. Any
application, admin integration or operational script that revokes credentials by calling .delete()
on a TokenProxy instance believes it has revoked a token that is still live.
Details
TokenProxy overrides pk to return the user id (rest_framework/authtoken/models.py:49-63):
@property
def pk(self):
return self.user_id
The concrete Token model keys on key, not on an integer id. Model.delete() builds its delete
query from pk, so it emits:
DELETE FROM "authtoken_token" WHERE "authtoken_token"."key" IN ('1')
That matches a user id against the 40-character key column. Nothing matches, nothing raises, and the
call returns (0, {'authtoken.TokenProxy': 0}).
DRF already ships two workarounds for this same identity mismatch instead of a fix. In
rest_framework/authtoken/admin.py, TokenAdmin.delete_model re-fetches the concrete row:
def delete_model(self, request, obj):
Token.objects.get(key=obj.key).delete() # admin.py:30
and TokenAdmin sets actions = None with the comment "Actions not compatible with mapped IDs"
(admin.py:50-53). The shipped admin path is therefore safe, and every other caller of
TokenProxy.delete() is not. Nothing in the API signals the difference.
TokenProxy was added by e2bd3b6a (PR #7341, "Adjusted token admin to map to user ID"), first
released in 3.12.0.
A fix would drop the pk override, or give TokenProxy a delete() that operates on the concrete
row, or raise instead of silently reporting zero deletions.
PoC
Save as poc_tokenproxy_revocation.py and run it.
#!/usr/bin/env python
"""
django-rest-framework: TokenProxy.delete() reports success and revokes nothing.
baseline token exists -> 200
TRIGGER TokenProxy.objects.get(...).delete() -> no exception, row survives, still 200
CONTROL Token.objects.get(key=...).delete() -> row gone, 401
The control is what makes the trigger meaningful: it proves the row was
deletable and the credential check live, so the 200 after the proxy delete is a
failed revocation and not a broken harness.
Requires: django, djangorestframework importable. No arguments.
python poc_tokenproxy_revocation.py
Exit status 0 means the revocation failure reproduced.
"""
import sys
import django
from django.conf import settings
settings.configure(
DEBUG=False,
SECRET_KEY="poc",
ALLOWED_HOSTS=["*"],
ROOT_URLCONF=__name__,
INSTALLED_APPS=[
"django.contrib.contenttypes",
"django.contrib.auth",
"rest_framework",
"rest_framework.authtoken",
],
DATABASES={"default": {"ENGINE": "django.db.backends.sqlite3", "NAME": ":memory:"}},
DEFAULT_AUTO_FIELD="django.db.models.AutoField",
USE_TZ=True,
)
django.setup()
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model # noqa: E402
from django.core.management import call_command # noqa: E402
from django.db import connection # noqa: E402
from django.test import Client # noqa: E402
from django.test.utils import CaptureQueriesContext # noqa: E402
from django.urls import path # noqa: E402
from rest_framework.authentication import TokenAuthentication # noqa: E402
from rest_framework.authtoken.models import Token, TokenProxy # noqa: E402
from rest_framework.permissions import IsAuthenticated # noqa: E402
from rest_framework.response import Response # noqa: E402
from rest_framework.views import APIView # noqa: E402
class Whoami(APIView):
authentication_classes = [TokenAuthentication]
permission_classes = [IsAuthenticated]
def get(self, request):
return Response({"user": request.user.get_username()})
urlpatterns = [path("", Whoami.as_view())]
def probe(client, key):
response = client.get("/", headers={"authorization": "Token %s" % key})
return response.status_code
def main():
call_command("migrate", run_syncdb=True, verbosity=0)
user = get_user_model().objects.create_user(username="revoke-user", password="pw")
key = Token.objects.create(user=user).key
client = Client()
print("TokenProxy._meta.proxy =", TokenProxy._meta.proxy)
print("Token._meta.pk.attname =", Token._meta.pk.attname)
print("user.pk =", user.pk)
print("token key =", key)
print("\n--- baseline")
print("rows =", Token.objects.count())
baseline = probe(client, key)
print("GET / with token ->", baseline)
print("\n--- TRIGGER: delete through the proxy")
proxy = TokenProxy.objects.get(user=user)
print("proxy.pk =", proxy.pk, "(TokenProxy.pk property)")
raised = None
with CaptureQueriesContext(connection) as ctx:
try:
returned = proxy.delete()
except Exception as exc: # noqa: BLE001
raised, returned = exc, None
for q in ctx.captured_queries:
if "DELETE" in q["sql"]:
print(" SQL:", q["sql"])
print("raised =", repr(raised))
print("returned =", returned)
print("rows =", Token.objects.count())
after_proxy = probe(client, key)
print("GET / with token ->", after_proxy)
print("\n--- CONTROL: delete the same row through the concrete model")
with CaptureQueriesContext(connection) as ctx2:
returned2 = Token.objects.get(key=key).delete()
for q in ctx2.captured_queries:
if "DELETE" in q["sql"]:
print(" SQL:", q["sql"])
print("returned =", returned2)
print("rows =", Token.objects.count())
after_real = probe(client, key)
print("GET / with token ->", after_real)
ok = baseline == 200 and raised is None and after_proxy == 200 and after_real == 401
print(
"\nrevocation failure reproduced:", ok,
"(baseline 200, still 200 after proxy delete, 401 after real delete)",
)
return 0 if ok else 1
if __name__ == "__main__":
sys.exit(main())
Observed output:
TokenProxy._meta.proxy = True
Token._meta.pk.attname = key
user.pk = 1
token key = 6a644878f252175d39205804c5a6faf16df67c10
--- baseline
rows = 1
GET / with token -> 200
--- TRIGGER: delete through the proxy
proxy.pk = 1 (TokenProxy.pk property)
SQL: DELETE FROM "authtoken_token" WHERE "authtoken_token"."key" IN ('1')
raised = None
returned = (0, {'authtoken.TokenProxy': 0})
rows = 1
GET / with token -> 200
--- CONTROL: delete the same row through the concrete model
SQL: DELETE FROM "authtoken_token" WHERE "authtoken_token"."key" IN ('6a644878...')
returned = (1, {'authtoken.Token': 1})
rows = 0
GET / with token -> 401
revocation failure reproduced: True
The control is what makes the trigger meaningful: it proves the row was deletable and the credential check live, so the 200 after the proxy delete is a failed revocation and not a broken harness. Reproduced identically on Django 6.1 and 5.2.17 LTS, so this is not a recent Django regression.
Impact
Failed credential revocation. An operator who revokes a token through a TokenProxy instance, and
receives no error, leaves a live credential in circulation indefinitely, because DRF auth tokens do
not expire on their own. Whoever holds that token benefits: a departed employee, a rotated
integration, a device believed to be deprovisioned, or an attacker whose access was thought to have
been cut during incident response.
No untrusted input reaches this code path, which is why the vector is scored AC:H. Exploitation
depends on the deployment revoking through the proxy, which is a natural thing to do given
TokenProxy is the model registered in the admin and the one most code will reach for. Any
deployment on 3.12.0 or later that revokes tokens outside DRF's own TokenAdmin.delete_model should
audit whether its revocations took effect.
{
"affected": [
{
"package": {
"ecosystem": "PyPI",
"name": "djangorestframework"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "3.12.0"
},
{
"fixed": "3.18.2"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
]
}
],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2026-114137"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-390",
"CWE-613"
],
"github_reviewed": true,
"github_reviewed_at": "2026-10-22T16:18:05Z",
"nvd_published_at": "2026-10-21T21:17:56Z",
"severity": "HIGH"
},
"details": "### Summary\n\nDeleting an authentication token through `TokenProxy` silently deletes nothing. The call raises no\nexception and reports success, the database row survives, and the token keeps authenticating. Any\napplication, admin integration or operational script that revokes credentials by calling `.delete()`\non a `TokenProxy` instance believes it has revoked a token that is still live.\n\n### Details\n\n`TokenProxy` overrides `pk` to return the user id (`rest_framework/authtoken/models.py:49-63`):\n\n```python\n@property\ndef pk(self):\n return self.user_id\n```\n\nThe concrete `Token` model keys on `key`, not on an integer id. `Model.delete()` builds its delete\nquery from `pk`, so it emits:\n\n```sql\nDELETE FROM \"authtoken_token\" WHERE \"authtoken_token\".\"key\" IN (\u00271\u0027)\n```\n\nThat matches a user id against the 40-character key column. Nothing matches, nothing raises, and the\ncall returns `(0, {\u0027authtoken.TokenProxy\u0027: 0})`.\n\nDRF already ships two workarounds for this same identity mismatch instead of a fix. In\n`rest_framework/authtoken/admin.py`, `TokenAdmin.delete_model` re-fetches the concrete row:\n\n```python\ndef delete_model(self, request, obj):\n Token.objects.get(key=obj.key).delete() # admin.py:30\n```\n\nand `TokenAdmin` sets `actions = None` with the comment \"Actions not compatible with mapped IDs\"\n(`admin.py:50-53`). The shipped admin path is therefore safe, and every other caller of\n`TokenProxy.delete()` is not. Nothing in the API signals the difference.\n\n`TokenProxy` was added by `e2bd3b6a` (PR #7341, \"Adjusted token admin to map to user ID\"), first\nreleased in 3.12.0.\n\nA fix would drop the `pk` override, or give `TokenProxy` a `delete()` that operates on the concrete\nrow, or raise instead of silently reporting zero deletions.\n\n### PoC\n\nSave as `poc_tokenproxy_revocation.py` and run it.\n\n```python\n#!/usr/bin/env python\n\"\"\"\ndjango-rest-framework: TokenProxy.delete() reports success and revokes nothing.\n\n baseline token exists -\u003e 200\n TRIGGER TokenProxy.objects.get(...).delete() -\u003e no exception, row survives, still 200\n CONTROL Token.objects.get(key=...).delete() -\u003e row gone, 401\n\nThe control is what makes the trigger meaningful: it proves the row was\ndeletable and the credential check live, so the 200 after the proxy delete is a\nfailed revocation and not a broken harness.\n\nRequires: django, djangorestframework importable. No arguments.\n python poc_tokenproxy_revocation.py\nExit status 0 means the revocation failure reproduced.\n\"\"\"\nimport sys\n\nimport django\nfrom django.conf import settings\n\nsettings.configure(\n DEBUG=False,\n SECRET_KEY=\"poc\",\n ALLOWED_HOSTS=[\"*\"],\n ROOT_URLCONF=__name__,\n INSTALLED_APPS=[\n \"django.contrib.contenttypes\",\n \"django.contrib.auth\",\n \"rest_framework\",\n \"rest_framework.authtoken\",\n ],\n DATABASES={\"default\": {\"ENGINE\": \"django.db.backends.sqlite3\", \"NAME\": \":memory:\"}},\n DEFAULT_AUTO_FIELD=\"django.db.models.AutoField\",\n USE_TZ=True,\n)\ndjango.setup()\n\nfrom django.contrib.auth import get_user_model # noqa: E402\nfrom django.core.management import call_command # noqa: E402\nfrom django.db import connection # noqa: E402\nfrom django.test import Client # noqa: E402\nfrom django.test.utils import CaptureQueriesContext # noqa: E402\nfrom django.urls import path # noqa: E402\n\nfrom rest_framework.authentication import TokenAuthentication # noqa: E402\nfrom rest_framework.authtoken.models import Token, TokenProxy # noqa: E402\nfrom rest_framework.permissions import IsAuthenticated # noqa: E402\nfrom rest_framework.response import Response # noqa: E402\nfrom rest_framework.views import APIView # noqa: E402\n\n\nclass Whoami(APIView):\n authentication_classes = [TokenAuthentication]\n permission_classes = [IsAuthenticated]\n\n def get(self, request):\n return Response({\"user\": request.user.get_username()})\n\n\nurlpatterns = [path(\"\", Whoami.as_view())]\n\n\ndef probe(client, key):\n response = client.get(\"/\", headers={\"authorization\": \"Token %s\" % key})\n return response.status_code\n\n\ndef main():\n call_command(\"migrate\", run_syncdb=True, verbosity=0)\n user = get_user_model().objects.create_user(username=\"revoke-user\", password=\"pw\")\n key = Token.objects.create(user=user).key\n client = Client()\n\n print(\"TokenProxy._meta.proxy =\", TokenProxy._meta.proxy)\n print(\"Token._meta.pk.attname =\", Token._meta.pk.attname)\n print(\"user.pk =\", user.pk)\n print(\"token key =\", key)\n\n print(\"\\n--- baseline\")\n print(\"rows =\", Token.objects.count())\n baseline = probe(client, key)\n print(\"GET / with token -\u003e\", baseline)\n\n print(\"\\n--- TRIGGER: delete through the proxy\")\n proxy = TokenProxy.objects.get(user=user)\n print(\"proxy.pk =\", proxy.pk, \"(TokenProxy.pk property)\")\n raised = None\n with CaptureQueriesContext(connection) as ctx:\n try:\n returned = proxy.delete()\n except Exception as exc: # noqa: BLE001\n raised, returned = exc, None\n for q in ctx.captured_queries:\n if \"DELETE\" in q[\"sql\"]:\n print(\" SQL:\", q[\"sql\"])\n print(\"raised =\", repr(raised))\n print(\"returned =\", returned)\n print(\"rows =\", Token.objects.count())\n after_proxy = probe(client, key)\n print(\"GET / with token -\u003e\", after_proxy)\n\n print(\"\\n--- CONTROL: delete the same row through the concrete model\")\n with CaptureQueriesContext(connection) as ctx2:\n returned2 = Token.objects.get(key=key).delete()\n for q in ctx2.captured_queries:\n if \"DELETE\" in q[\"sql\"]:\n print(\" SQL:\", q[\"sql\"])\n print(\"returned =\", returned2)\n print(\"rows =\", Token.objects.count())\n after_real = probe(client, key)\n print(\"GET / with token -\u003e\", after_real)\n\n ok = baseline == 200 and raised is None and after_proxy == 200 and after_real == 401\n print(\n \"\\nrevocation failure reproduced:\", ok,\n \"(baseline 200, still 200 after proxy delete, 401 after real delete)\",\n )\n return 0 if ok else 1\n\n\nif __name__ == \"__main__\":\n sys.exit(main())\n```\n\nObserved output:\n\n```\nTokenProxy._meta.proxy = True\nToken._meta.pk.attname = key\nuser.pk = 1\ntoken key = 6a644878f252175d39205804c5a6faf16df67c10\n\n--- baseline\nrows = 1\nGET / with token -\u003e 200\n\n--- TRIGGER: delete through the proxy\nproxy.pk = 1 (TokenProxy.pk property)\n SQL: DELETE FROM \"authtoken_token\" WHERE \"authtoken_token\".\"key\" IN (\u00271\u0027)\nraised = None\nreturned = (0, {\u0027authtoken.TokenProxy\u0027: 0})\nrows = 1\nGET / with token -\u003e 200\n\n--- CONTROL: delete the same row through the concrete model\n SQL: DELETE FROM \"authtoken_token\" WHERE \"authtoken_token\".\"key\" IN (\u00276a644878...\u0027)\nreturned = (1, {\u0027authtoken.Token\u0027: 1})\nrows = 0\nGET / with token -\u003e 401\n\nrevocation failure reproduced: True\n```\n\nThe control is what makes the trigger meaningful: it proves the row was deletable and the credential\ncheck live, so the 200 after the proxy delete is a failed revocation and not a broken harness.\nReproduced identically on Django 6.1 and 5.2.17 LTS, so this is not a recent Django regression.\n\n### Impact\n\nFailed credential revocation. An operator who revokes a token through a `TokenProxy` instance, and\nreceives no error, leaves a live credential in circulation indefinitely, because DRF auth tokens do\nnot expire on their own. Whoever holds that token benefits: a departed employee, a rotated\nintegration, a device believed to be deprovisioned, or an attacker whose access was thought to have\nbeen cut during incident response.\n\nNo untrusted input reaches this code path, which is why the vector is scored `AC:H`. Exploitation\ndepends on the deployment revoking through the proxy, which is a natural thing to do given\n`TokenProxy` is the model registered in the admin and the one most code will reach for. Any\ndeployment on 3.12.0 or later that revokes tokens outside DRF\u0027s own `TokenAdmin.delete_model` should\naudit whether its revocations took effect.",
"id": "GHSA-xw6w-gcfp-cf8m",
"modified": "2026-10-22T16:18:05Z",
"published": "2026-10-22T16:18:05Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/encode/django-rest-framework/security/advisories/GHSA-xw6w-gcfp-cf8m"
},
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-114137"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/encode/django-rest-framework/commit/af3fabfd517307fbc5d500fba1ab8f6e25f220b0"
},
{
"type": "PACKAGE",
"url": "https://github.com/encode/django-rest-framework"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/encode/django-rest-framework/releases/tag/3.18.2"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
],
"summary": "Django REST framework: TokenProxy.delete() reports success and revokes nothing"
}
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