CVE-2026-44298 — kimai/kimai

Summary

Users with the role System-Admin (ROLE_SYSTE_ADMIN) and the permission upload_invoice_template can upload PDF invoice templates, which can call pdfContext.setOption('associated_files', ...) inside the sandboxed Twig render.

This is forwarded to mPDF's SetAssociatedFiles(), whose writer calls file_get_contents($entry['path']) during PDF output and embeds the bytes as a FlateDecode stream in the PDF. Any file readable by the PHP worker is returned to the attacker inside the rendered invoice.

Root cause

1. src/Twig/SecurityPolicy/StrictPolicy.php:123-128 explicitly whitelists PdfContext::setOption():

   if ($obj instanceof PdfContext) {
       if ($lcm !== 'setoption') { throw ...; }
       return;
   }
   

2. src/Pdf/MPdfConverter.php keeps associated_files in the pass-through allowlist:

   $allowed = ['mode','format','default_font_size','default_font', ... , 'associated_files','additional_xmp_rdf'];
   

   and then forwards it to mPDF:

   if (array_key_exists('associated_files', $options) && is_array($options['associated_files'])) {
       $associatedFiles = $options['associated_files'];
       unset($options['associated_files']);
   }
   ...
   $mpdf->SetAssociatedFiles($associatedFiles);
   

3. mPDF 8.3.1 MetadataWriter::writeAssociatedFiles() calls file_get_contents, which respects PHP stream wrappers:

   if (isset($file['path'])) {
       $fileContent = @file_get_contents($file['path']);
   }
   ...
   $filestream = gzcompress($fileContent);
   $this->writer->write('<</Type /EmbeddedFile');
   

The sandbox and the option allowlist were both written defensively (short whitelists, not blacklists), but neither side considered that associated_files is a PDF/A file-embedding feature whose path key is a sink.

Fix

The implemented fix has two aspects:

1. The PdfContext now works with a strict allow-list, that excludes associated_files
2. The MPdfConverter now removes any path from the $associatedFiles array, which can still be used by plugins:

        if (\count($associatedFiles) > 0) {
            // remove "path" so mPDF will not use file_get_contents() on local files
            // callers must pre-read and pass the bytes via "content"
            $associatedFiles = array_map(static function ($entry): array {
                if (!\is_array($entry)) {
                    return [];
                }

                if (\array_key_exists('path', $entry)) {
                    unset($entry['path']);
                }

                return $entry;
            }, $associatedFiles);
            $mpdf->SetAssociatedFiles($associatedFiles);
        }