CVE-2026-31978
MEDIUMCVE-2026-31978 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Path Traversal vulnerability in motioneye. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-31978 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
motionEye: Arbitrary File Read via Path Traversal in Picture/Movie Preview Endpoint
Blast Radius
motioneyeReal-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
motionEye (mEye) is an online interface for motion software, which is a video surveillance program with motion detection. Versions prior to 0.44.0 are vulnerable to path traversal in the picture and movie API endpoints, suhc as /picture/{id}/preview/{filename}. Neither the API handlers, nor the mediafiles.py functions such as get_media_preview() check for .. sequences in the filename parameter, except for get_media_content(). This allows an authenticated user with normal (non-admin) privileges to read arbitrary files from the filesystem as the motionEye process user, such as: /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, motionEye config files containing password hashes and plaintext passwords, SSH keys, and other cameras' surveillance footage. This issue has been fixed in version 0.44.0.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | motioneye | all versions | 0.44.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for motioneye. 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 motioneye to 0.44.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-31978 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-2026-31978 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-2026-31978. 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-2026-31978 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-31978 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.