CVE-2023-46115 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.4) Information Exposure vulnerability in tauri-cli. A fix is available for tauri-cli — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Updater Private Keys Possibly Leaked via Vite Environment Variables in tauri-cli
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-46115.
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-2023-46115 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 378,567 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.
@tauri-apps/clinpmDescription
Impact
This advisory is not describing a vulnerability in the Tauri code base itself but a commonly used misconfiguration which could lead to leaking of the private key and updater key password into bundled Tauri applications using the Vite frontend in a specific configuration.
The Tauri documentation used an insecure example configuration in the Vite guide to showcase how to use Tauri together with Vite.
Copying the following snippet envPrefix: ['VITE_', 'TAURI_'], from this guide into the vite.config.ts of a Tauri project possibly leads to bundling the TAURI_PRIVATE_KEY and TAURI_KEY_PASSWORD into the Vite frontend code and therefore leaking this value to the debug built of a Tauri application.
The value is automatically bundled into debug builds but for production builds it is not embedded, as long as it is not directly referenced in the frontend code. Vite statically replaces these values in production builds. This reduces the amount of affected applications to a very small amount of affected applications.
To verify if you are affected you can search for the private key value or the TAURI_PRIVATE_KEY variable inside the release build frontend assets (dist/).
Example:
grep -r "TAURI_PRIVATE_KEY" dist/
Using only the envPrefix: ['VITE_'], or any other framework than Vite means you are not impacted by this advisory.
Patches
The documentation has been patched but as the root cause is not in Tauri itself the issue is not fixed by updating Tauri.
The vite.config.ts configuration of the project needs to be adapted.
We recommend rotating your updater private key if you are affected by this (requires Tauri CLI >=1.5.5). After updating the envPrefix configuration, generate a new private key with tauri signer generate, saving the new private key and updating the updater's pubkey value on tauri.conf.json with the new public key. To update your existing application, the next application build must be signed with the older private key in order to be accepted by the existing application.
Workarounds
The envPrefix: ['VITE_'],should be used and the desired TAURI variables manually added.
Respective these variables could be added TAURI_PLATFORM, TAURI_ARCH, TAURI_FAMILY, TAURI_PLATFORM_VERSION, TAURI_PLATFORM_TYPE and TAURI_DEBUG without leaking sensitive information.
We urge affected users to implement the workaround as the 1.x branch will not receive a general prevention fix as it would break systems.
References
The issue was originally disclosed in our discord here. The affected guide is https://tauri.app/v1/guides/getting-started/setup/vite/.
Update: We lowered the severity from high to low, as the likelihood of impact was found to only affect a very limited amount of applications.
Update2: We changed the affected versions to make clear that after
2.0.0-alpha.16or1.5.6the potentially vulnerable recommendation was no longer visible on our website and should not affect projects by default. A lot of users were confused and we believe this advisory reached the necessary user base.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | tauri-cli | ≥ 2.0.0-alpha.0&&< 2.0.0-alpha.16 | 2.0.0-alpha.16cargo update -p tauri-cli --precise 2.0.0-alpha.16 |
| 🦀crates.io | tauri-cli | ≥ 1.0.0&&< 1.5.6 | 1.5.6cargo update -p tauri-cli --precise 1.5.6 |
| 📦npm | @tauri-apps/cli | ≥ 2.0.0-alpha.0&&< 2.0.0-alpha.16 | 2.0.0-alpha.16npm install @tauri-apps/cli@2.0.0-alpha.16 |
| 📦npm | @tauri-apps/cli | ≥ 1.0.0&&< 1.5.6 | 1.5.6npm install @tauri-apps/cli@1.5.6 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for tauri-cli, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update tauri-cli to 2.0.0-alpha.16 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-46115 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-2023-46115 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-46115. 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-2023-46115 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-46115 across crates.io, npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.