CVE-2026-43965

Summary

Path traversal vulnerability in Gleam's dependency management allows arbitrary directory deletion via malicious build/packages/packages.toml content.

Package keys read from build/packages/packages.toml by LocalPackages::read_from_disc are passed without validation to paths.build_packages_package(), which constructs a filesystem path by joining the project build directory with the attacker-controlled key. The resulting path is then passed to fs::delete_directory (which calls remove_dir_all). No check is performed to ensure the path remains within the intended build/packages/ directory. Both absolute paths and relative traversal sequences (e.g. ../) are accepted as package keys, allowing deletion of arbitrary directories.

An attacker who can cause a victim to run gleam deps download on a project containing a malicious build/packages/packages.toml (e.g. by committing the normally-gitignored file to a repository) can cause arbitrary directories on the victim's system to be recursively deleted.

This issue affects Gleam from 0.18.0-rc1 until 1.17.0.

Affected Software

VendorProductVersion RangeStatus
GleamGleam0.18.0-rc1 < 1.17.0affected
GleamGleam0.18.0-rc1 < 1.17.0affected
GleamGleamed7aec0484f10d60978b63788c8a6497590855ab < 690ca069817bee5f77a28fc3e360627c1da19291affected
GleamGleamv0.18.0-rc1-elixir < v1.17.0-elixiraffected
GleamGleamv0.18.0-rc1-erlang < v1.17.0-erlangaffected
GleamGleamv0.18.0-rc1-node < v1.17.0-nodeaffected
GleamGleamv0.18.0-rc1-node-slim < v1.17.0-node-slimaffected
GleamGleamv0.18.0-rc1-elixir-slim < v1.17.0-elixir-slimaffected
GleamGleamv0.18.0-rc1-erlang-slim < v1.17.0-erlang-slimaffected
GleamGleamv0.18.0-rc1-erlang-alpine < v1.17.0-erlang-alpineaffected
GleamGleamv0.18.0-rc1-elixir-alpine < v1.17.0-elixir-alpineaffected
GleamGleamv0.18.0-rc1-node-alpine < v1.17.0-node-alpineaffected
GleamGleamv0.18.0-rc1-scratch < v1.17.0-scratchaffected

Weaknesses

  • CWE-22: CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

ADP Enrichment

CISA ADP Vulnrichment

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

Additional References

References