CVE-2023-45311 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Code Injection vulnerability in fsevents. 6 public exploit or proof-of-concept references are indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for fsevents — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Code injection in fsevents
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-2023-45311.
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.
fseventsnpmDescription
fsevents before 1.2.11 depends on the https://fsevents-binaries.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com URL, which might allow an adversary to execute arbitrary code if any JavaScript project (that depends on fsevents) distributes code that was obtained from that URL at a time when it was controlled by an adversary. NOTE: some sources feel that this means that no version is affected any longer, because the URL is not controlled by an adversary.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | fsevents | all versions | 1.2.11npm install fsevents@1.2.11 |
Affected Products
fseventsfsevents_projectResearch 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 fsevents, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update fsevents to 1.2.11 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-45311 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-45311 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.