CVE-2026-40288 — praisonaiagents
CRITICALCVE-2026-40288 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) OS Command Injection vulnerability in praisonaiagents. A fix is available for praisonaiagents — see the affected versions and patch details below.
PraisonAI: Critical RCE via `type: job` workflow YAML
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.
- 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.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-40288.
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-2026-40288 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 377,166 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
praisonaiagents🐍praisonaiReal-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
PraisonAI is a multi-agent teams system. In versions below 4.5.139 of PraisonAI and 1.5.140 of praisonaiagents, the workflow engine is vulnerable to arbitrary command and code execution through untrusted YAML files. When praisonai workflow run <file.yaml> loads a YAML file with type: job, the JobWorkflowExecutor in job_workflow.py processes steps that support run: (shell commands via subprocess.run()), script: (inline Python via exec()), and python: (arbitrary Python script execution)—all without any validation, sandboxing, or user confirmation. The affected code paths include action_run() in workflow.py and _exec_shell(), _exec_inline_python(), and _exec_python_script() in job_workflow.py. An attacker who can supply or influence a workflow YAML file (particularly in CI pipelines, shared repositories, or multi-tenant deployment environments) can achieve full arbitrary command execution on the host system, compromising the machine and any accessible data or credentials. This issue has been fixed in versions 4.5.139 of PraisonAI and 1.5.140 of praisonaiagents.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | praisonaiagents | all versions | 1.5.140pip install --upgrade 'praisonaiagents==1.5.140' |
| 🐍PyPI | praisonai | all versions | 4.5.139pip install --upgrade 'praisonai==4.5.139' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for praisonaiagents, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update praisonaiagents to 1.5.140 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-40288 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-2026-40288 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-40288. 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-2026-40288 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-40288 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.