pnpm up to 10.28.1 path traversal

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in pnpm up to 10.28.1. Affected is an unknown function. This manipulation causes path traversal. This vulnerability appears as CVE-2026-24056. The attack may be initiated remotely. There is no available exploit. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in pnpm up to 10.28.1 and classified as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown code. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a path traversal vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-22. The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality. The summary by CVE is:

pnpm is a package manager. Prior to version 10.28.2, when pnpm installs a `file:` (directory) or `git:` dependency, it follows symlinks and reads their target contents without constraining them to the package root. A malicious package containing a symlink to an absolute path (e.g., `/etc/passwd`, `~/.ssh/id_rsa`) causes pnpm to copy that file's contents into `node_modules`, leaking local data. The vulnerability only affects `file:` and `git:` dependencies. Registry packages (npm) have symlinks stripped during publish and are NOT affected. The issue impacts developers installing local/file dependencies andCI/CD pipelines installing git dependencies. It can lead to credential theft via symlinks to `~/.aws/credentials`, `~/.npmrc`, `~/.ssh/id_rsa`. Version 10.28.2 contains a patch.

The advisory is shared at github.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-24056 since 01/20/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be launched remotely. The exploitation doesn't need any form of authentication. It demands that the victim is doing some kind of user interaction. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1006 for this issue.

Upgrading to version 10.28.2 eliminates this vulnerability. The upgrade is hosted for download at github.com. Applying the patch b277b45bc35ae77ca72d7634d144bbd58a48b70f is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at github.com. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at EUVD (EUVD-2026-4658). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Name

• pnpm

Version

• 10.28.0
• 10.28.1

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://github.com/pnpm/pnpm/

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Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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