CVE-2026-71312 is a high-severity (CVSS 8) OS Command Injection vulnerability in github.com/rclone/rclone. A fix is available for github.com/rclone/rclone — see the affected versions and patch details below.
rclone: PowerShell Smart-Quote Filename Injection Enables SFTP Server-Side Command Execution
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.
- 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-2026-71312.
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-2026-71312 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 376,715 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/rclone/rcloneReal-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
rclone is a command-line program to sync files and directories to and from different cloud storage providers. Prior to v1.75.0, rclone interpolates remote SFTP paths into PowerShell hash commands in backend/sftp/sftp.go, and quoteOrEscapeShellPath escapes only ASCII apostrophe even though PowerShell treats U+2018, U+2019, U+201A, and U+201B as single-quote delimiters, allowing an attacker-controlled filename to terminate the intended path literal and append PowerShell statements that execute as the victim SSH account when server-side hashing is invoked. This issue is fixed in v1.75.0.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/rclone/rclone | all versions | 1.75.0go get github.com/rclone/rclone@v1.75.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/rclone/rclone, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/rclone/rclone to 1.75.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-71312 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-2026-71312 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-71312. 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-2026-71312 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-71312 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.