CVE-2026-45088
HIGHCVE-2026-45088 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-73 vulnerability in github.com/hahwul/dalfox/v2. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-45088 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Dalfox: Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Read with Out-of-Band Exfiltration via `custom-payload-file` in Dalfox Server Mode
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.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-45088.
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-2026-45088 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 356,665 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
github.com/hahwul/dalfox/v2Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Dalfox is a powerful open-source XSS scanner and utility focused on automation. Prior to 2.13.0, when dalfox is run in REST API server mode, the custom-payload-file field in model.Options is JSON-tagged and deserialized directly from the attacker's request body, then propagated unchanged through dalfox.Initialize into the scan engine. The engine passes the value to voltFile.ReadLinesOrLiteral, which reads lines from any file path accessible to the dalfox process and embeds each line as an XSS payload in outbound HTTP requests directed at the attacker-controlled target URL. Because the server has no API key by default, an unauthenticated network attacker can exfiltrate the contents of arbitrary files on the dalfox host by reading them line-by-line through scan traffic. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.13.0.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/hahwul/dalfox/v2 | all versions | 2.13.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/hahwul/dalfox/v2. 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 github.com/hahwul/dalfox/v2 to 2.13.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-45088 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-2026-45088 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-2026-45088. 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-2026-45088 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-45088 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.