CVE-2018-3731 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Path Traversal vulnerability in public. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for public — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Path Traversal in public
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2018-3731 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, a proxy for how much of the ecosystem is exposed.
publicnpmDescription
Versions of public before 0.1.3 are vulnerable to path traversal. This is due to lack of file path sanitization which could lead to any file the parent process has access to on the server to be read by malicious user.
Recommendation
Update to version 0.1.3 or later.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | public | all versions | 0.1.3npm install public@0.1.3 |
Affected Products
public.jspublic.js_projectResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for public, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update public to 0.1.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-3731 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2018-3731 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.