CVE-2023-32080 — wings
CRITICALCVE-2023-32080 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9) CWE-250 vulnerability in github.com/pterodactyl/wings. A fix is available for github.com/pterodactyl/wings — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Wings vulnerable to escape to host from installation container
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2023-32080.
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-2023-32080 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 377,333 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
github.com/pterodactyl/wings🐹github.com/pterodactyl/wingsReal-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
Wings is the server control plane for Pterodactyl Panel. A vulnerability affecting versions prior to 1.7.5 and versions 1.11.0 prior to 1.11.6 impacts anyone running the affected versions of Wings. This vulnerability can be used to gain access to the host system running Wings if a user is able to modify an server's install script or the install script executes code supplied by the user (either through environment variables, or commands that execute commands based off of user data). This vulnerability has been resolved in version v1.11.6 of Wings, and has been back-ported to the 1.7 release series in v1.7.5. Anyone running v1.11.x should upgrade to v1.11.6 and anyone running v1.7.x should upgrade to v1.7.5.
There are no workarounds aside from upgrading. Running Wings with a rootless container runtime may mitigate the severity of any attacks, however the majority of users are using container runtimes that run as root as per the Wings documentation. SELinux may prevent attackers from performing certain operations against the host system, however privileged containers have a lot of freedom even on systems with SELinux enabled.
It should be noted that this was a known attack vector, for attackers to easily exploit this attack it would require compromising an administrator account on a Panel. However, certain eggs (the data structure that holds the install scripts that get passed to Wings) have an issue where they are unknowingly executing shell commands with escalated privileges provided by untrusted user data.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/pterodactyl/wings | all versions | 1.7.5go get github.com/pterodactyl/wings@v1.7.5 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/pterodactyl/wings | ≥ 1.11.0&&< 1.11.6 | 1.11.6go get github.com/pterodactyl/wings@v1.11.6 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/pterodactyl/wings, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/pterodactyl/wings to 1.7.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-32080 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-2023-32080 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-32080. 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-2023-32080 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-32080 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.