Why This Matters
E-commerce platforms sit at the core of business operations. When an admin account can be silently deleted or replaced without the owner’s consent, the entire system’s integrity is compromised.
This article documents a serious security issue observed in Bagisto-based systems, where legitimate administrator accounts were removed and replaced by an unexpected default/admin user, without clear audit trails or user-initiated actions.
The goal of this article is awareness and responsible disclosure, not speculation.
🧩 What Happened
In a production Bagisto installation, the following behavior was observed:
A legitimate administrator account (for example, Admin ID = 1)
was overwritten and deleted.
Shortly afterward, a different admin account appeared, using:
a different email
a different username
but with equal or higher privileges
This occurred without any intentional action by the system owner
No admin UI interaction triggered the change
No standard Laravel or Bagisto logs explained why this happened
In practice:
A real administrator disappeared, and another administrator took its place.
🔍 What the Logs Revealed
- Database-Level Deletion Was Confirmed
Using MySQL binary logs (binlog) with ROW format enabled:
A DELETE operation was recorded on the admins table
The transaction was committed
This confirms the record was physically removed at the database level
This was not:
a soft delete
a UI hide
a permission change
- Application Logs Were Inconclusive
Laravel and Bagisto application logs:
Did not record an admin delete action
Did not identify a user, route, or controller responsible
- Prepared Statements Hide the Actor
Because Bagisto uses prepared statements, MySQL general logs show only:
Prepare
Execute
?
This obscures:
the origin of the query
whether it came from UI, background job, installer, or internal service logic
🔐 Important: This Was NOT Caused by Poor Server Security
To be absolutely clear, the environment was locked down:
✅ MySQL Security
❌ No remote MySQL access
❌ Root MySQL user disabled
❌ MySQL accessible only locally
❌ No shared credentials
❌ No external database connections
✅ SSH Security
❌ Password login disabled
✅ SSH key authentication only
❌ No public SSH access with credentials
❌ No unauthorized SSH sessions detected
✅ Infrastructure Controls
No exposed admin tools
No public database ports
No leaked credentials
This rules out:
brute-force attacks
remote MySQL compromise
SSH credential abuse
direct database manipulation by an external actor
🚨 The Most Concerning Behavior: Admin Replacement
The most alarming behavior was not just deletion — but replacement.
Observed pattern:
Legitimate admin account exists (ID ≈ 1)
That account is deleted
A different admin account appears
The new account has:
admin privileges
no clear creation event
no corresponding UI action
Over time, the legitimate admin is replaced again
This behavior is not normal for:
Laravel
Bagisto
or any standard RBAC implementation
❓ Why This Is a Serious Security Risk
- Breaks the Trust Model
Admin accounts are the root of trust.
Silent deletion or replacement invalidates all access assumptions.
- Impossible to Audit Retroactively
Without:
admin activity logs
immutable audit trails
database-level triggers
…post-incident investigation becomes guesswork.
- Potential Exploitation Vector
Whether intentional or accidental, this behavior can be exploited by:
malicious packages
compromised update logic
installer or seeder code
undocumented internal processes
⚠️ Is This a Backdoor?
This article does not claim intent.
However, from a security engineering standpoint, the observed behavior matches characteristics of a backdoor-like vulnerability:
Hidden privilege changes
No user interaction
No explicit audit trail
Repeated admin replacement
Privileged access granted implicitly
At minimum, this is a critical security flaw that requires investigation.
🛠️ What Bagisto Users Should Do Immediately
If you operate Bagisto in production:
Audit the admins table
Look for deleted, replaced, or recreated accounts
Enable database auditing
Log all DELETE, INSERT, UPDATE operations on admin tables
Force 2FA on admin access
Password-only admin access is insufficient
Retain MySQL binary logs
Long enough to investigate incidents
Review installers, seeders, and packages
Especially anything that touches admin users
📣 A Call to the Bagisto Community
Bagisto is widely adopted, which makes security transparency critical.
The community deserves:
acknowledgment of the issue
reproducible investigation
and a verified mitigation or fix
Ignoring this behavior puts real businesses at risk.
✅ Final Thoughts
This article is not an accusation.
It is a technical warning based on real production behavior.
When:
SSH is locked down
MySQL is not remotely accessible
root access is disabled
…and admin accounts are still silently deleted or replaced,
the problem is inside the application layer.
Bagisto users should verify their systems now, not after damage occurs.
Top comments (1)
This has been taken care of with the patch release of v2.3.10: github.com/bagisto/bagisto/securit...