fix: remove activation_key from account REST API response - #831
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Agrendalath merged 1 commit intoMar 31, 2026
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The activation_key field was exposed in /api/user/v1/accounts/{username},
allowing an attacker to bypass email verification by combining two behaviors:
1. OAuth2 password grant issues tokens to inactive users (intentional)
2. activation_key returned in API response (the vulnerability)
An attacker could register, get an OAuth2 token, read the activation_key
from the API, then GET /activate/{key} to activate without email access.
Fix: remove activation_key from UserReadOnlySerializer.to_representation()
and from ACCOUNT_VISIBILITY_CONFIGURATION["admin_fields"] (which controls
the field whitelist in _filter_fields — listed fields default to None even
if absent from the serializer data dict).
Reported by Daniel Baillo via the Open edX security working group.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Agrendalath
changed the base branch from
opencraft-release/redwood.1-echo-prod
to
opencraft-release/redwood.1-echo
March 31, 2026 18:23
Agrendalath
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Mar 31, 2026
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- I tested this: read the diff
- I read through the code
- I checked for accessibility issues: n/a
- Includes documentation: n/a
- Added to the Code Drift project board (for backports): n/a
Agrendalath
merged commit Mar 31, 2026
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opencraft-release/redwood.1-echo
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The activation_key field was exposed in /api/user/v1/accounts/{username}, allowing an attacker to bypass email verification by combining two behaviors:
An attacker could register, get an OAuth2 token, read the activation_key from the API, then GET /activate/{key} to activate without email access.
Fix: remove activation_key from UserReadOnlySerializer.to_representation() and from ACCOUNT_VISIBILITY_CONFIGURATION["admin_fields"] (which controls the field whitelist in _filter_fields — listed fields default to None even if absent from the serializer data dict).
Reported by Daniel Baillo via the Open edX security working group.