CVE-2026-23888

Summary

pnpm is a package manager. Prior to version 10.28.1, a path traversal vulnerability in pnpm's binary fetcher allows malicious packages to write files outside the intended extraction directory. The vulnerability has two attack vectors: (1) Malicious ZIP entries containing ../ or absolute paths that escape the extraction root via AdmZip's extractAllTo, and (2) The BinaryResolution.prefix field is concatenated into the extraction path without validation, allowing a crafted prefix like ../../evil to redirect extracted files outside targetDir. The issue impacts all pnpm users who install packages with binary assets, users who configure custom Node.js binary locations and CI/CD pipelines that auto-install binary dependencies. It can lead to overwriting config files, scripts, or other sensitive files leading to RCE. Version 10.28.1 contains a patch.

Affected Software

VendorProductVersion RangeStatus
pnpmpnpm< 10.28.1affected

Weaknesses

  • CWE-22: CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
  • CWE-23: CWE-23: Relative Path Traversal
  • CWE-426: CWE-426: Untrusted Search Path

ADP Enrichment

CISA ADP Vulnrichment

  • SSVC:
  • Exploitation: poc
    • Automatable: no
    • Technical Impact: partial

References