Path traversal in Hex via unvalidated dependency app names (hexpm hex)

CVE-2026-96612
HIGH 7.5

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.44 % · percentile 38 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
EEF
NVD status
Deferred

Description

Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in hexpm hex allows a malicious package publisher to delete a directory outside the project's deps directory and extract package files into it when a developer fetches dependencies. A package release's requirements carry an app label that names the dependency's OTP application. Hex takes this label from the repository's signed registry and uses it as the dependency's application name without validating it (Hex.RemoteConverger.deps/2, Hex.Mix.to_lock/1). Mix derives the dependency's checkout directory as deps/<app>, and Hex.SCM.update/1 runs File.rm_rf!/1 on that directory and unpacks the package into it. hex.pm only checks the label's length, so a publisher can set it to a value such as ../../target. When a project depends on such a release directly or transitively, mix deps.get or mix deps.update deletes the directory the label resolves to and writes the labelled package's files there. This happens before any dependency code is compiled. This issue affects hex: from 0.6.0 before 2.5.2.

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-22 — Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 4.0HIGH 7.5CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:NEEF
CVSS 4.0HIGH 7.5CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:XNVD · 6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db (Secondary)

European references

Affected products

ProductVersions
hexpm · hexaffected 0.6.0 < 2.5.2
hexpm · hexaffected 380f87054e1bc08ee13d2b5311bc01f98dad2fc6 < *

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD