CVE-2025-69263 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-494 vulnerability in pnpm. A fix is available for pnpm — see the affected versions and patch details below.
pnpm Lockfile Integrity Bypass Allows Remote Dynamic Dependencies
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.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2025-69263.
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-2025-69263 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 378,156 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.
pnpmnpmDescription
Summary
HTTP tarball dependencies (and git-hosted tarballs) are stored in the lockfile without integrity hashes. This allows the remote server to serve different content on each install, even when a lockfile is committed.
Details
When a package depends on an HTTP tarball URL, pnpm's tarball resolver returns only the URL without computing an integrity hash:
resolving/tarball-resolver/src/index.ts:
return {
resolution: {
tarball: resolvedUrl,
// No integrity field
},
resolvedVia: 'url',
}
The resulting lockfile entry has no integrity to verify:
remote-dynamic-dependency@http://example.com/pkg.tgz:
resolution: {tarball: http://example.com/pkg.tgz}
version: 1.0.0
Since there is no integrity hash, pnpm cannot detect when the server returns different content.
This affects:
- HTTP/HTTPS tarball URLs (
"pkg": "https://example.com/pkg.tgz") - Git shorthand dependencies (
"pkg": "github:user/repo") - Git URLs (
"pkg": "git+https://github.com/user/repo")
npm registry packages are not affected as they include integrity hashes from the registry metadata.
PoC
See attached pnpm-bypass-integrity-poc.zip
The POC includes:
- A server that returns different tarball content on each request
- A
malicious-packagethat depends on the HTTP tarball - A
victimproject that depends onmalicious-package
To run:
cd pnpm-bypass-integrity-poc
./run-poc.sh
The output shows that each install (with pnpm store prune between them) downloads different code despite having a committed lockfile.
Impact
An attacker who publishes a package with an HTTP tarball dependency can serve different code to different users or CI/CD environments. This enables:
- Targeted attacks based on request metadata (IP, headers, timing)
- Evasion of security audits (serve benign code during review, malicious code later)
- Supply chain attacks where the malicious payload changes over time
The attack requires the victim to install a package that has an HTTP/git tarball in its dependency tree. The victim's lockfile provides no protection.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | pnpm | all versions | 10.26.0npm install pnpm@10.26.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for pnpm, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update pnpm to 10.26.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-69263 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-2025-69263 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2025-69263. 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-2025-69263 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2025-69263 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.