CVE-2026-11816 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.1) Path Traversal vulnerability in keras. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-11816 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Path Traversal in keras-team/keras
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-2026-11816.
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-2026-11816 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 358,265 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
kerasReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Keras versions prior to 3.14.0 are vulnerable to a path traversal issue in the archive extraction utilities located in keras/src/utils/file_utils.py. The functions filter_safe_tarinfos() and filter_safe_zipinfos() validate archive member paths against the process current working directory (CWD) instead of the actual extraction destination. When the process runs with CWD set to /, which is common in Docker containers, CI/CD runners, and Jupyter environments, the validation boundary becomes the filesystem root, allowing traversal paths to bypass the security check. Additionally, the zip filter contains a bug that causes an AttributeError when a blocked entry is encountered, leading to incomplete extraction. Furthermore, Python 3.11 installations lack the filter="data" safety net, leaving them entirely reliant on the flawed CWD-based filter. Exploitation of this vulnerability can result in arbitrary file writes outside the intended extraction directory, enabling attackers to overwrite configuration files, inject malicious code, or corrupt machine learning datasets and pipelines.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | keras | all versions | 3.14.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for keras. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update keras to 3.14.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-11816 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-11816 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2026-11816. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Exploitation requires processing a crafted archive (default CNA vector includes UI:R). For RHOAI, the highest-risk path is KServe storage-initializer auto-extraction of attacker-supplied model artifacts (Important), not unauthenticated network RCE.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-11816 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-11816 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.