How severe is CVE-2026-54561?

CVE-2026-54561 has a CVSS score of 6.2/10, rated MEDIUM. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2026-54561?

CVE-2026-54561 affects the following packages: mcp-memory-keeper (npm). Ecosystems affected: npm.

How do I fix CVE-2026-54561?

Update mcp-memory-keeper to 0.13.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-54561 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2026-54561 in my npm dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for mcp-memory-keeper, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate CVE-2026-54561 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.

Is CVE-2026-54561 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2026-54561 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2026-54561?

CVE-2026-54561 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.2%, placing it in the 15th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2026-54561?

CVE-2026-54561 is classified as Path Traversal (CWE-22), CWE-209 (CWE-209). These weakness types describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation. This is a high-impact weakness class that often enables remote code execution or data exposure.

When was CVE-2026-54561 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2026-54561 was published on September 15, 2026 and was last updated on October 21, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

📦

📦 npm

Not in CISA KEV

MEDIUM severity

CVE-2026-54561 — mcp-memory-keeper

MEDIUMFix: mkreyman/mcp-memory-keeper@58640c2

CVE-2026-54561 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.2) Path Traversal vulnerability in mcp-memory-keeper. A fix is available for mcp-memory-keeper — see the affected versions and patch details below.

MCP Memory Keeper: Arbitrary local file read in mcp-memory-keeper context_import via unvalidated filePath

Also known asGHSA-f7wf-v2vw-mpcx

Published

Sep 15, 2026

Updated

Oct 21, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Oct 24, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

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.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-54561.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.2%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs15th percentile — riskier than 15% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2026-54561 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected

How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.

0other npm packages depend on this — each one inherits the vulnerability until it's patched upstream

mcp-memory-keepernpm

140downloads / week

Description

Impact

context_import passed the caller-supplied filePath directly to fs.readFileSync with no path confinement. A malicious MCP client — or an LLM agent that is prompt-injected into calling the tool — could point filePath at any file readable by the server process, outside any session or export directory:

Full disclosure (JSON files): a valid-JSON target (e.g. another user's exported session, or a *.json credential / service-account file) is parsed and imported into the caller's session, then retrievable verbatim via context_get / context_export.
Partial disclosure (any file): for a non-JSON target (e.g. /etc/passwd, an SSH key, a .env), JSON.parse throws and V8 includes a snippet of the file's leading bytes in the SyntaxError message, which was returned verbatim to the caller.

Both ../ traversal and absolute paths worked — there was no path confinement of any kind.

In a typical MCP deployment the server runs on the developer's machine, so the reachable set includes other users' exported memory sessions, JSON credential/config files, and (in leading-bytes form) .env files, SSH keys, and /etc/passwd. The trigger is a tool argument, so the realistic threat model is an LLM agent prompt-injected into calling context_import, or any MCP client connected to the server.

Patches

Fixed in 0.13.0 (PR #36):

Imports are confined to a server-owned exports directory (<DATA_DIR>/exports, overridable via MEMORY_KEEPER_EXPORT_DIR), resolved with realpathSync. ../ traversal, absolute paths outside the directory, and symlink escapes are all rejected.
File read and JSON.parse are separate operations; read/parse failures return a generic message and never echo file bytes (the SyntaxError-message leak is gone). The database-write path is likewise generic.
An E2E security regression suite covers the reported arbitrary-read and traversal vectors, plus symlink escape, the directory-prefix boundary, and a no-existence-oracle check.

Workarounds

Upgrade to >= 0.13.0. There is no configuration-only workaround for affected versions.

Resources

Report: GitHub issue #35
Fix: PR #36

Credit

Reported by Zhihao Zhang (@mcfly-zzh).

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
📦npm	`mcp-memory-keeper`	all versions	0.13.0`npm install mcp-memory-keeper@0.13.0`

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for mcp-memory-keeper, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update mcp-memory-keeper to 0.13.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-54561 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Impact `context_import` passed the caller-supplied `filePath` directly to `fs.readFileSync` with no path confinement. A malicious MCP client — or an LLM agent that is prompt-injected into calling the tool — could point `filePath` at **any file readable by the server process**, outside any session or export directory: - **Full disclosure (JSON files):** a valid-JSON target (e.g. another user's exported session, or a `*.json` credential / service-account file) is parsed and imported into the caller's session, then retrievable verbatim via `context_get` / `context_export`. - **Partial discl