CVE-2026-54261

Impact

Due to a missing permission check on the image preview endpoint, a user with access to the Wagtail admin can preview any image. The existing data of the image object itself is not exposed. The vulnerability is not exploitable by an ordinary site visitor without access to the Wagtail admin.

Patches

Patched versions have been released as Wagtail 7.0.8, 7.3.3, 7.4.2.

Workarounds

For sites that cannot easily upgrade to a current supported version, the vulnerability can be patched by adding the following code to urls.py URL pattern declarations to override the vulnerable view.

from django.core.exceptions import PermissionDenied
from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404
from django.urls import path
from wagtail.admin import urls as wagtailadmin_urls
from wagtail.images.permissions import permission_policy
from wagtail.images.views import preview


def patched_preview(request, image_id, filter_spec):
    image = get_object_or_404(get_image_model(), id=image_id)

    if not permission_policy.user_has_permission_for_instance(request.user, "change", image):
        raise PermissionDenied

    return preview(request, image_id, filter_spec)


urlpatterns = [
    # Example where the CMS admin is at /admin/.
    # Add this before the Wagtail admin URLs registration, with the same sub-path.
    path("admin/images/<int:image_id>/preview/<str:filter_spec>/", patched_preview)
    path("admin/", include(wagtailadmin_urls)),
]

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to @0x1saac and @harshakshit for reporting this issue.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

• Visit Wagtail's support channels
• Email us at security@wagtail.org (view our security policy for more information).