CVE-2026-49983
MEDIUMCVE-2026-49983 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.2) CWE-863 vulnerability in deno. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-49983 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Deno: process.loadEnvFile() bypasses env permission checks and mutates process.env with only read access
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2026-49983.
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-2026-49983 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 372,324 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
denoReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Deno is a JavaScript, TypeScript, and WebAssembly runtime. Prior to 2.8.1, environment access is gated by the env permission. You can deny it with --deny-env, or restrict it to a specific allowlist with --allow-env=FOO,BAR. The expectation is that a program running without env permission cannot change process.env. process.loadEnvFile() (the Node-compatible API for loading variables from a .env file) does not honor this. It only checks that the program has read permission for the dotenv file, then writes every key in that file into the process environment — even when env access is denied. In effect, --allow-read plus a writable or attacker-controlled .env file is enough to defeat --deny-env. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.8.1.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | deno | all versions | 2.8.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for deno. 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 deno to 2.8.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-49983 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-2026-49983 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-2026-49983. 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-2026-49983 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-49983 across crates.io dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.