Vulnerability · Published Jan 22, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-23946Tendenci has Authenticated Remote Code Execution via Pickle Deserialization
Medium 6.8
In plain English
A medium-severity unsafe deserialization in tendenci from tendenci. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.8% (higher than 58% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
Tendenci is an open source content management system built for non-profits, associations and cause-based sites. Versions 15.3.11 and below include a critical deserialization vulnerability in the Helpdesk module (which is not enabled by default). This vulnerability allows Remote Code Execution (RCE) by an authenticated user with staff security level due to using Python's pickle module in helpdesk /reports/. The original CVE-2020-14942 was incompletely patched. While ticket_list() was fixed to use safe JSON deserialization, the run_report() function still uses unsafe pickle.loads(). The impact is limited to the permissions of the user running the application, typically www-data, which generally lacks write (except for upload directories) and execute permissions. This issue has been fixed in version 15.3.12.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| PyPI | tendenci | 15.3.12 | GHSA-339m-4qw5-j2g3 |
| PyPI | tendenci | 15.3.12 | PYSEC-2026-1950 |
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-502, CWE-94 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
References
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/security/advisories/GHSA-339m-4qw5-j2g3 x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/issues/867 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/commit/23d9fd85ab7654e9c83cfc86cb4175c0bd7a77f1 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/commit/2ff0a457614944a1b417081c543ea4c5bb95d636 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/commit/63e1b84a5b163466d1d8d811d35e7021a7ca0d0e x_refsource_MISC
- https://docs.python.org/3/library/pickle.html#restricting-globals x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-jqmc-fxxp-r589 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/releases/tag/v15.3.12 x_refsource_MISC