@better-auth/sso: SSO provider may allow registration for any org member without a checking their role

Am I affected?

You are affected if all of the following are true:

• You depend on @better-auth/sso at any version in >= 1.2.10, < 1.6.11, or any current next pre-release.
• You enable both sso() and organization() plugins.
• providersLimit is at its default (10) or any non-zero value, so SSO provider registration is enabled for authenticated users.
• An organization has non-admin members, or your application can add users to organizations as regular members.

You are at the highest risk if any of these also hold:

• Organization membership can be obtained without a direct admin decision, such as through open invitations, self-serve onboarding, public team joins, or SCIM bulk imports.
• organizationProvisioning.defaultRole or organizationProvisioning.getRole returns admin or higher for SSO-provisioned users. The bug then becomes unauthorized admin creation in the org.
• domainVerification.enabled is false (the default). The malicious provider is immediately usable.

Fix:

1. Upgrade to @better-auth/[email protected] or later.
2. If you cannot upgrade, see workarounds below.

Summary

The SSO plugin's POST /sso/register endpoint lets any member of an organization attach a new SSO provider to that organization. It checks that the caller has a membership row, but it does not check whether the caller has an administrative role for the organization.

This creates an authorization mismatch for the same resource. Other org-linked SSO provider management endpoints treat those providers as admin-managed: list, get, update, and delete require the caller to be an organization owner or admin. The create path is less restrictive, so a regular member can attach an attacker-controlled OIDC or SAML identity provider to an organization they do not administer. After registration, downstream organization provisioning can add IdP-asserted users from /sso/callback/{providerId} into the target organization, defaulting to role member.

Details

This issue does not rely on a separate documentation statement that only admins may create SSO connections. The issue is that Better Auth already enforces an admin boundary for org-linked SSO provider management, but registerSSOProvider does not enforce the same boundary when the provider is first created.

The list, get, update, and delete endpoints in providers.ts gate org-linked SSO providers via isOrgAdmin, which accepts owner or admin. The create path in sso.ts performs only a membership lookup and never inspects member.role. As a result, the endpoint allows a low-privilege organization member to create a provider record that they would not be allowed to view, update, or delete through the companion provider-management endpoints.

The fix introduces a shared hasOrgAdminRole(member) helper (refactored out of isOrgAdmin) and adds the admin check to the registration handler so that registration matches the protections on the read and mutation paths.

Patches

Fixed in @better-auth/[email protected]. When organizationId is supplied and the organization plugin is enabled, the registerSSOProvider handler now requires the caller to hold the owner or admin role on the target organization. This makes provider creation match the existing protection on the get, update, and delete endpoints.

Workarounds

If you cannot upgrade immediately:

• Disable user-driven SSO registration entirely: set sso({ providersLimit: 0 }). Registration throws FORBIDDEN before the membership gate. Trade-off: admins also lose self-serve provider creation; provisioning has to go through server-side auth.api.registerSSOProvider({ headers: serverAdminHeaders, body }) calls.
• Disable SSO-driven org provisioning: set sso({ organizationProvisioning: { disabled: true } }). The malicious provider can still be registered, but the SSO callback no longer adds users to the org automatically. Trade-off: legitimate SSO-driven onboarding stops.
• Custom before hook on /sso/register that asserts the caller's role on body.organizationId is owner or admin. This duplicates the patch shape in user code.
• Audit existing rows: list ssoProvider rows where organizationId IS NOT NULL, cross-reference each userId with member.role for that organization, and remove provider rows whose creator is not currently owner or admin. Removing the provider does not auto-remove members it created, so cleanup is two-step.

Impact

• Unauthorized provider configuration within an organization tenant: a regular member writes an SSO provider record on an organization they do not administer.
• Unauthorized organization membership creation: subsequent SSO callbacks can add IdP-asserted users to the target organization at the configured default role.
• Admin creation when configured: if organizationProvisioning.defaultRole is admin, or organizationProvisioning.getRole returns admin, the issue can create admin-grade users in the target organization without owner consent.

Credit

Reported by @Nadav0077. The same finding was previously raised in public issue #9133 (2026-04-12).