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GHSA-wx3m-whqv-xv47

skillctl: Path traversal and symlink-follow in skillctl allow arbitrary file disclosure and deletion

7.1 HighFix available

GHSA-wx3m-whqv-xv47 is a high vulnerability (CVSS 7.1) in skillctl, published June 5, 2026. No source lists public exploit code. Fixed in skillctl 0.1.2.

What does this mean?
Severity
7.1 HighCVSS 4.0, GitHub Advisories
Exploit chance
UnscoredNo EPSS score yet
Exploitation
None knownNot on CISA’s or ENISA’s lists
Fixed in
0.1.2skillctl

Description

Impact

skillctl 0.1.0 and 0.1.1 contained four path-safety vulnerabilities that, in combination, allowed an attacker to:

  1. Exfiltrate arbitrary files on the operator's machine by publishing a malicious skills library containing a symlink inside a skill folder (e.g. niania → /home/user/.aws/credentials). The symlink fell through entry.file_type().is_dir() in fs_util::copy_dir_all, was dereferenced by fs::copy, and the target's content was copied into the project. A subsequent skillctl push would have published the secret to the (possibly public) library — what the reporter called "round-trip path exfiltration".

  2. Delete arbitrary directories outside the project or library root by crafting a .skills.toml with a malicious destination or source_path field. Both were deserialized as PathBuf with zero validation. Because Path::join lets an absolute right-hand side replace the base, destination = "/home/user/.ssh" made cwd.join(...) resolve outside the project; .. traversal was equally unguarded. Downstream remove_dir_all in replace_folder_contents then wiped arbitrary writable directories on skillctl pull / push / detect. .skills.toml is the exact kind of file teams commit and exchange via PR; a single merged malicious PR was sufficient to weaponise the maintainer's next skillctl pull --all.

  3. detect --target accepted .. traversal, even though absolute paths were rejected. --target ../../../etc would have written outside the library root.

  4. Fork-name validation accepted . and .. literally, so a fork named .. would have produced a Path::join resolving to the parent directory and fs::rename could have clobbered it.

Patches

Fixed in v0.1.2:

  • Symlinks inside skill folders are hard-rejected at copy time (both top-level source and any descendant entry).
  • .skills.toml destination and source_path are validated at load time and reject absolute paths, .. components, and Windows-prefix components.
  • A new path_safety::safe_join helper is wired (defense-in-depth) at every destructive call site in pull.rs / push.rs.
  • detect --target and the interactive custom-path prompt go through the same validate_relative_subpath helper.
  • validate_fork_name explicitly rejects . and ...

Threat-model note: the fix is purely lexical (component-level) plus an explicit symlink check at copy time. No filesystem canonicalize calls were added, avoiding TOCTOU windows.

Credit

Reported privately on 2026-05-19 by firebaguette via the Umanio Discord (the reporter declined GitHub credit, so this advisory carries no structured credits field).

Attack profile

How easy it is to exploit

Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges needed
None
User interaction
Passive

What an attacker can affect

Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

Affected packages

Affected packages
PackageAffectedFixed
skillctl
crates.io
before 0.1.2
0.1.2

What each source reports

GitHub Advisories Score used7.1

skillctl: Path traversal and symlink-follow in skillctl allow arbitrary file disclosure and deletion

Impact

skillctl 0.1.0 and 0.1.1 contained four path-safety vulnerabilities that, in combination, allowed an attacker to:

  1. Exfiltrate arbitrary files on the operator's machine by publishing a malicious skills library containing a symlink inside a skill folder (e.g. niania → /home/user/.aws/credentials). The symlink fell through entry.file_type().is_dir() in fs_util::copy_dir_all, was dereferenced by fs::copy, and the target's content was copied into the project. A subsequent skillctl push would have published the secret to the (possibly public) library — what the reporter called "round-trip path exfiltration".

  2. Delete arbitrary directories outside the project or library root by crafting a .skills.toml with a malicious destination or source_path field. Both were deserialized as PathBuf with zero validation. Because Path::join lets an absolute right-hand side replace the base, destination = "/home/user/.ssh" made cwd.join(...) resolve outside the project; .. traversal was equally unguarded. Downstream remove_dir_all in replace_folder_contents then wiped arbitrary writable directories on skillctl pull / push / detect. .skills.toml is the exact kind of file teams commit and exchange via PR; a single merged malicious PR was sufficient to weaponise the maintainer's next skillctl pull --all.

  3. detect --target accepted .. traversal, even though absolute paths were rejected. --target ../../../etc would have written outside the library root.

  4. Fork-name validation accepted . and .. literally, so a fork named .. would have produced a Path::join resolving to the parent directory and fs::rename could have clobbered it.

Patches

Fixed in v0.1.2:

  • Symlinks inside skill folders are hard-rejected at copy time (both top-level source and any descendant entry).
  • .skills.toml destination and source_path are validated at load time and reject absolute paths, .. components, and Windows-prefix components.
  • A new path_safety::safe_join helper is wired (defense-in-depth) at every destructive call site in pull.rs / push.rs.
  • detect --target and the interactive custom-path prompt go through the same validate_relative_subpath helper.
  • validate_fork_name explicitly rejects . and ...

Threat-model note: the fix is purely lexical (component-level) plus an explicit symlink check at copy time. No filesystem canonicalize calls were added, avoiding TOCTOU windows.

Credit

Reported privately on 2026-05-19 by firebaguette via the Umanio Discord (the reporter declined GitHub credit, so this advisory carries no structured credits field).

Record
GHSA-wx3m-whqv-xv47
CVSS 4.0
7.1 HighCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Weakness
CWE-22, CWE-61
Updated
2026-11-02
OSV7.1

skillctl: Path traversal and symlink-follow in skillctl allow arbitrary file disclosure and deletion

Impact

skillctl 0.1.0 and 0.1.1 contained four path-safety vulnerabilities that, in combination, allowed an attacker to:

  1. Exfiltrate arbitrary files on the operator's machine by publishing a malicious skills library containing a symlink inside a skill folder (e.g. niania → /home/user/.aws/credentials). The symlink fell through entry.file_type().is_dir() in fs_util::copy_dir_all, was dereferenced by fs::copy, and the target's content was copied into the project. A subsequent skillctl push would have published the secret to the (possibly public) library — what the reporter called "round-trip path exfiltration".

  2. Delete arbitrary directories outside the project or library root by crafting a .skills.toml with a malicious destination or source_path field. Both were deserialized as PathBuf with zero validation. Because Path::join lets an absolute right-hand side replace the base, destination = "/home/user/.ssh" made cwd.join(...) resolve outside the project; .. traversal was equally unguarded. Downstream remove_dir_all in replace_folder_contents then wiped arbitrary writable directories on skillctl pull / push / detect. .skills.toml is the exact kind of file teams commit and exchange via PR; a single merged malicious PR was sufficient to weaponise the maintainer's next skillctl pull --all.

  3. detect --target accepted .. traversal, even though absolute paths were rejected. --target ../../../etc would have written outside the library root.

  4. Fork-name validation accepted . and .. literally, so a fork named .. would have produced a Path::join resolving to the parent directory and fs::rename could have clobbered it.

Patches

Fixed in v0.1.2:

  • Symlinks inside skill folders are hard-rejected at copy time (both top-level source and any descendant entry).
  • .skills.toml destination and source_path are validated at load time and reject absolute paths, .. components, and Windows-prefix components.
  • A new path_safety::safe_join helper is wired (defense-in-depth) at every destructive call site in pull.rs / push.rs.
  • detect --target and the interactive custom-path prompt go through the same validate_relative_subpath helper.
  • validate_fork_name explicitly rejects . and ...

Threat-model note: the fix is purely lexical (component-level) plus an explicit symlink check at copy time. No filesystem canonicalize calls were added, avoiding TOCTOU windows.

Credit

Reported privately on 2026-05-19 by firebaguette via the Umanio Discord (the reporter declined GitHub credit, so this advisory carries no structured credits field).

Record
GHSA-wx3m-whqv-xv47
CVSS 4.0
7.1 HighCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Weakness
CWE-22, CWE-61
Updated
2026-11-02

History

History
RecordedChangedSources
first indexedGitHub Advisories, OSV

Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.

References

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