CVE-2023-0290 — velociraptor
MEDIUMCVE-2023-0290 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.3) Path Traversal vulnerability in www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor. A fix is available for www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Rapid7 Velociraptor directory traversal in client ID parameter
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-2023-0290 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
www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptorReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Rapid7 Velociraptor did not properly sanitize the client ID parameter to the CreateCollection API, allowing a directory traversal in where the collection task could be written. It was possible to provide a client id of "../clients/server" to schedule the collection for the server (as a server artifact), but only require privileges to schedule collections on the client.
Normally, to schedule an artifact on the server, the COLLECT_SERVER permission is required. This permission is normally only granted to "administrator" role. Due to this issue, it is sufficient to have the COLLECT_CLIENT privilege, which is normally granted to the "investigator" role. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must already have a Velociraptor user account at least "investigator" level, and be able to authenticate to the GUI and issue an API call to the backend. Typically, most users deploy Velociraptor with limited access to a trusted group, and most users will already be administrators within the GUI.
This issue affects Velociraptor versions before 0.6.7-5. Version 0.6.7-5, released January 16, 2023, fixes the issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor | all versions | 0.6.7-5go get www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor@v0.6.7-5 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor to 0.6.7-5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-0290 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-2023-0290 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-0290. 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-2023-0290 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-0290 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.