AI agent vulnerability · n8n

CVE-2026-59254: n8n: External Secrets Accessible via Workflow Expressions Outside Credentials

mediumCVSS 4.0 6.3GHSA-2434-3x6q-8r99

Impact External secrets were incorrectly resolved in workflow node expressions, where they are not intended to be available. An authenticated user with project editor access could read the plaintext value of external secrets by referencing them in a node expression, without needing explicit secrets access permissions. This issue only affects instances with the external secrets feature configured.

Published Jul 22, 2026

Affected packages

n8n

Ecosystem: npm
Affected: >= 2.28.0, < 2.28.1
Fixed in: 2.28.1
Check: npm ls n8n

n8n

Ecosystem: npm
Affected: < 2.27.4
Fixed in: 2.27.4
Check: npm ls n8n

Advisory details

From the GitHub Advisory Database (CC BY 4.0).

Impact

External secrets were incorrectly resolved in workflow node expressions, where they are not intended to be available. An authenticated user with project editor access could read the plaintext value of external secrets by referencing them in a node expression, without needing explicit secrets access permissions.

This issue only affects instances with the external secrets feature configured.

Patches

The issue has been fixed in n8n versions 2.27.4 and 2.28.1. Users should upgrade to one of these versions or later to remediate the vulnerability.

Workarounds

If upgrading is not immediately possible, administrators should consider the following temporary mitigations:

Restrict project membership to fully trusted users only.
Avoid granting editor access to projects on instances where external secrets are configured.

These workarounds do not fully remediate the risk and should only be used as short-term mitigation measures.

References

How this page is made: the data panel comes from the GitHub Advisory Database, CISA’s KEV catalog, the NVD and FIRST EPSS, and updates twice a day. No analysis has been written for this entry yet. Methodology

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