CVE-2023-26045 is a critical-severity (CVSS 10) Path Traversal vulnerability in nodebb. A fix is available for nodebb — see the affected versions and patch details below.
NodeBB vulnerable to path traversal and code execution via prototype vulnerability
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-26045.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
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.
nodebbnpmDescription
NodeBB is Node.js based forum software. Starting in version 2.5.0 and prior to version 2.8.7, due to the use of the object destructuring assignment syntax in the user export code path, combined with a path traversal vulnerability, a specially crafted payload could invoke the user export logic to arbitrarily execute javascript files on the local disk. This issue is patched in version 2.8.7. As a workaround, site maintainers can cherry pick the fix into their codebase to patch the exploit.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | nodebb | ≥ 2.5.0&&< 2.8.7 | 2.8.7npm install nodebb@2.8.7 |
Affected Products
nodebbnodebbDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for nodebb, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update nodebb to 2.8.7 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-26045 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-2023-26045 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.