CVE-2026-108592 in mini-swe-agent
Summary
by MITRE • 10/10/2026
mini-swe-agent 1.10.0 through 2.4.6 contains an information exposure vulnerability in BubblewrapEnvironment because bwrap omits --clearenv, so sandboxed commands inherit the host environment. Attackers using prompt injection in processed task content can make the agent read API keys from the environment and exfiltrate them over the shared network.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/10/2026
The vulnerability identified in mini-swe-agent versions 1.10.0 through 2.4.6 represents a critical failure in process isolation mechanisms, specifically within the BubblewrapEnvironment component. This flaw stems from an improper configuration of the bubblewrap tool, which is commonly used to create unprivileged containers for executing potentially unsafe commands. In this specific implementation, the sandboxed execution environment fails to include the --clearenv flag during initialization. Consequently, child processes spawned by the agent inherit all environmental variables present in the host process context rather than starting with a clean slate. This oversight fundamentally undermines the security boundary intended by containerization technologies, allowing sensitive data stored in system or user environment variables to leak into isolated execution contexts where it should remain inaccessible.
From a technical perspective, this flaw aligns directly with CWE-200: Information Exposure, as well as CWE-798: Use of Hard-coded Credentials if those keys are sourced from configuration files loaded via environment variables. The absence of environment variable clearing means that any secret such as API tokens, database connection strings, or authentication credentials present in the host shell session becomes available to the sandboxed process. This is particularly dangerous because bubblewrap is often employed precisely to restrict access to sensitive resources. By bypassing this restriction through inherited environment data, an attacker can effectively escape the intended security confinement without needing to exploit a kernel-level vulnerability or break out of the container namespace entirely.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe when combined with prompt injection attacks against large language model agents. If an adversary crafts malicious task content designed to trick the agent into executing arbitrary shell commands, they can leverage the inherited environment to read sensitive files that contain API keys stored in variables like AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY or GITHUB_TOKEN. Once these credentials are exposed within the sandboxed process, the attacker can utilize network capabilities available to the container to exfiltrate this data over shared networks. This scenario is consistent with ATT&CK technique T1087: Account Discovery and T1539: Steal Web Session Cookie, adapted for cloud-native agent environments where identity tokens are frequently passed via environment variables rather than file-based storage.
Mitigation strategies must focus on enforcing strict isolation principles at the process level. The primary remediation is to update mini-swe-agent to a version that correctly implements --clearenv in its BubblewrapEnvironment configuration, ensuring that child processes do not inherit host environment variables. Additionally, organizations should adopt defense-in-depth practices by avoiding the storage of high-value secrets directly in shell environment variables whenever possible. Instead, secret management solutions such as HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager should be used to inject credentials at runtime through secure channels. Furthermore, network segmentation policies should restrict outbound traffic from sandboxed environments to prevent data exfiltration even if a breach occurs, and input validation mechanisms must be strengthened to detect and neutralize prompt injection attempts before they reach the execution layer.