CVE-2022-1537 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) CWE-367 vulnerability in grunt. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for grunt — see the affected versions and patch details below.
file.copy operations in GruntJS are vulnerable to a TOCTOU race condition leading to arbitrary file write in gruntjs/grunt
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-1537 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,166 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
gruntnpmDescription
file.copy operations in GruntJS are vulnerable to a TOCTOU race condition leading to arbitrary file write in GitHub repository gruntjs/grunt prior to 1.5.3. This vulnerability is capable of arbitrary file writes which can lead to local privilege escalation to the GruntJS user if a lower-privileged user has write access to both source and destination directories as the lower-privileged user can create a symlink to the GruntJS user's .bashrc file or replace /etc/shadow file if the GruntJS user is root.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | grunt | all versions | 1.5.3npm install grunt@1.5.3 |
Research 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 grunt, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update grunt to 1.5.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-1537 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2022-1537 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-1537. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-1537 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-1537 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.