GHSA-hp8f-xmx4-4qrg
Paths or symlinks ending in a slash escape the sandbox
GHSA-hp8f-xmx4-4qrg is a critical vulnerability (CVSS 9.0) in cap-primitives, published August 20, 2026. No source lists public exploit code. Fixed in cap-primitives 3.4.6.
- Severity
- 9.0 CriticalCVSS 3.1, OSV
- Exploit chance
- UnscoredNo EPSS score yet
- Exploitation
- None knownNot on CISA’s or ENISA’s lists
- Fixed in
3.4.6cap-primitives
Description
cap-primitives resolves a path inside a sandboxed directory one component at a time and opens the last component with O_NOFOLLOW, so that a symlink there cannot lead out of the directory. When the path ended in /, the resolver added the slash back to the last component before opening it. With a trailing slash the operating system no longer treats that component as the last one, so O_NOFOLLOW does not apply, the symlink is followed, and the resulting file descriptor was returned without further checks.
A symlink inside the sandbox that points outside it, such as escape -> ../outside or a link to /, can therefore be opened as escape/. If the symlink's own target ends in /, the caller's path does not need a trailing slash at all, so removing trailing slashes from untrusted input is not a workaround. The maintainers' advisory reports reads and writes outside the sandbox through open, open_dir, read_dir and canonicalize, and directory creation, removal and renames outside it through create_dir, remove_dir and rename.
This resolver is used on Windows and macOS, on FreeBSD when O_RESOLVE_BENEATH is not available, and on Linux when openat2 is not available (kernels before 5.6, or a seccomp policy that rejects it). cap-std and other crates built on cap-primitives are affected through it. Wasmtime's WASI filesystem support was affected as well; that is covered by RUSTSEC-2026-0269.
The fix stops re-adding the trailing slash and is in 3.4.6 and 4.0.3.
Attack profile
How easy it is to exploit
- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges needed
- None
- User interaction
- None
What an attacker can affect
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- None
Affected packages
| Package | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|
cap-primitivescrates.io | 0.0.0-0 up to 3.4.6, 4.0.0 up to 4.0.3 | 3.4.64.0.3 |
What each source reports
OSV Score usedRUSTSEC-2026-0482 9.0
Paths or symlinks ending in a slash escape the sandbox
cap-primitives resolves a path inside a sandboxed directory one component at a time and opens the last component with O_NOFOLLOW, so that a symlink there cannot lead out of the directory. When the path ended in /, the resolver added the slash back to the last component before opening it. With a trailing slash the operating system no longer treats that component as the last one, so O_NOFOLLOW does not apply, the symlink is followed, and the resulting file descriptor was returned without further checks.
A symlink inside the sandbox that points outside it, such as escape -> ../outside or a link to /, can therefore be opened as escape/. If the symlink's own target ends in /, the caller's path does not need a trailing slash at all, so removing trailing slashes from untrusted input is not a workaround. The maintainers' advisory reports reads and writes outside the sandbox through open, open_dir, read_dir and canonicalize, and directory creation, removal and renames outside it through create_dir, remove_dir and rename.
This resolver is used on Windows and macOS, on FreeBSD when O_RESOLVE_BENEATH is not available, and on Linux when openat2 is not available (kernels before 5.6, or a seccomp policy that rejects it). cap-std and other crates built on cap-primitives are affected through it. Wasmtime's WASI filesystem support was affected as well; that is covered by RUSTSEC-2026-0269.
The fix stops re-adding the trailing slash and is in 3.4.6 and 4.0.3.
- Record
RUSTSEC-2026-0482- CVSS 3.1
- 9.0 Critical
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N - Updated
- 2026-11-11
History
| Recorded | Changed | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| first indexed | OSV |
Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.