CVE-2026-55609

sublinear-time-solver is a Rust and WebAssembly library for solving asymmetric diagonally dominant systems in sublinear time. Prior to consciousness-explorer 1.1.2 and sublinear-time-solver 1.6.0, the export_state and import_state tools in src/consciousness-explorer/mcp/server.js pass the attacker-controlled filepath parameter to filesystem operations in src/consciousness-explorer/index.js without restricting the destination or rejecting traversal. The saveVectorToFile and loadVectorFromFile tools in src/mcp/server.ts contain the same sink class through the file_path parameter. An attacker able to invoke the MCP tools can read, write, or overwrite any file accessible to the server process, causing confidentiality and integrity loss and possible service disruption. This issue is fixed in consciousness-explorer 1.1.2 and sublinear-time-solver 1.6.0.

sublinear-time-solver is a Rust and WebAssembly library for solving asymmetric diagonally dominant systems in sublinear time. Prior to consciousness-explorer 1.1.2 and sublinear-time-solver 1.6.0, the export_state and import_state tools in src/consciousness-explorer/mcp/server.js pass the attacker-controlled filepath parameter to filesystem operations in src/consciousness-explorer/index.js without restricting the destination or rejecting traversal. The saveVectorToFile and loadVectorFromFile tools in src/mcp/server.ts contain the same sink class through the file_path parameter. An attacker able to invoke the MCP tools can read, write, or overwrite any file accessible to the server process, causing confidentiality and integrity loss and possible service disruption. This issue is fixed in consciousness-explorer 1.1.2 and sublinear-time-solver 1.6.0.

Impact

An arbitrary file write vulnerability (CWE-73, External Control of File Name or Path) exists in the consciousness-explorer component of sublinear-time-solver. The MCP export_state (and import_state) tool accepted a user-supplied filepath argument and passed it directly to fs.writeFileSync / fs.readFileSync without constraining the destination or rejecting path traversal. An attacker able to invoke the MCP tool could write or overwrite any file accessible to the server process (e.g. ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, application files), leading to integrity loss and potential service disruption.

The same sink class was present in the main solver MCP server (saveVectorToFile / loadVectorFromFile).

Affected versions

• consciousness-explorer < 1.1.2
• sublinear-time-solver < 1.6.0
• sublinear (crates.io) < 0.2.0

Patches

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]

State/vector files are now confined to a dedicated directory (overridable via $CONSCIOUSNESS_EXPLORER_STATE_DIR / $SUBLINEAR_SOLVER_VECTOR_DIR), a basename-only contract is enforced (rejecting separators, .., NUL/control chars, hidden files, and Windows reserved names), and files are opened with O_NOFOLLOW | O_CLOEXEC mode 0o600. Covered by 14 regression tests in tests/consciousness/safe-path.test.mjs.

Breaking change: callers must now pass a basename, not an absolute path.

Workarounds

Do not expose the MCP server to untrusted clients; restrict export_state to trusted local users; run the server under a low-privilege account with a restricted working directory.

sublinear-time-solver is a Rust and WebAssembly library for solving asymmetric diagonally dominant systems in sublinear time. Prior to consciousness-explorer 1.1.2 and sublinear-time-solver 1.6.0, the export_state and import_state tools in src/consciousness-explorer/mcp/server.js pass the attacker-controlled filepath parameter to filesystem operations in src/consciousness-explorer/index.js without restricting the destination or rejecting traversal. The saveVectorToFile and loadVectorFromFile tools in src/mcp/server.ts contain the same sink class through the file_path parameter. An attacker able to invoke the MCP tools can read, write, or overwrite any file accessible to the server process, causing confidentiality and integrity loss and possible service disruption. This issue is fixed in consciousness-explorer 1.1.2 and sublinear-time-solver 1.6.0.

sublinear-time-solver is a Rust and WebAssembly library for solving asymmetric diagonally dominant systems in sublinear time. Prior to consciousness-explorer 1.1.2 and sublinear-time-solver 1.6.0, the export_state and import_state tools in src/consciousness-explorer/mcp/server.js pass the attacker-controlled filepath parameter to filesystem operations in src/consciousness-explorer/index.js without restricting the destination or rejecting traversal. The saveVectorToFile and loadVectorFromFile tools in src/mcp/server.ts contain the same sink class through the file_path parameter. An attacker able to invoke the MCP tools can read, write, or overwrite any file accessible to the server process, causing confidentiality and integrity loss and possible service disruption. This issue is fixed in consciousness-explorer 1.1.2 and sublinear-time-solver 1.6.0.

Impact

An arbitrary file write vulnerability (CWE-73, External Control of File Name or Path) exists in the consciousness-explorer component of sublinear-time-solver. The MCP export_state (and import_state) tool accepted a user-supplied filepath argument and passed it directly to fs.writeFileSync / fs.readFileSync without constraining the destination or rejecting path traversal. An attacker able to invoke the MCP tool could write or overwrite any file accessible to the server process (e.g. ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, application files), leading to integrity loss and potential service disruption.

The same sink class was present in the main solver MCP server (saveVectorToFile / loadVectorFromFile).

Affected versions

• consciousness-explorer < 1.1.2
• sublinear-time-solver < 1.6.0
• sublinear (crates.io) < 0.2.0

Patches

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]

State/vector files are now confined to a dedicated directory (overridable via $CONSCIOUSNESS_EXPLORER_STATE_DIR / $SUBLINEAR_SOLVER_VECTOR_DIR), a basename-only contract is enforced (rejecting separators, .., NUL/control chars, hidden files, and Windows reserved names), and files are opened with O_NOFOLLOW | O_CLOEXEC mode 0o600. Covered by 14 regression tests in tests/consciousness/safe-path.test.mjs.

Breaking change: callers must now pass a basename, not an absolute path.

Workarounds

Do not expose the MCP server to untrusted clients; restrict export_state to trusted local users; run the server under a low-privilege account with a restricted working directory.