CVE-2018-7408
HIGHCVE-2018-7408 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) CWE-732 vulnerability in npm. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2018-7408 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource in NPM
Blast Radius
npmReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects npm packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
An issue was discovered in an npm 5.7.0 2018-02-21 pre-release (marked as "next: 5.7.0" and therefore automatically installed by an "npm upgrade -g npm" command, and also announced in the vendor's blog without mention of pre-release status). It might allow local users to bypass intended filesystem access restrictions because ownerships of /etc and /usr directories are being changed unexpectedly, related to a "correctMkdir" issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | npm | all versions | 5.7.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for npm. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update npm to 5.7.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-7408 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2018-7408 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2018-7408. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2018-7408 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2018-7408 across npm dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.