GHSA-2jq4-q6vv-4cp3
CRITICALGHSA-2jq4-q6vv-4cp3 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.6) Path Traversal vulnerability in crawl4ai. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-2jq4-q6vv-4cp3 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Crawl4AI: Arbitrary file write (path traversal) in crawler downloads can lead to RCE
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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 GHSA-2jq4-q6vv-4cp3.
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
GHSA-2jq4-q6vv-4cp3 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
crawl4aiReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
When the crawler saves a downloaded file, the destination filename was taken from attacker-influenced input and joined to the downloads directory with no confinement. A filename containing an absolute path (e.g. /etc/cron.d/evil) or ../ traversal escaped the downloads directory, giving an arbitrary file write with attacker-controlled contents. Because the written bytes are attacker-controlled, this escalates to remote code execution (overwriting a shell rc-file, ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, a cron entry, or a Python module on the import path).
Affected paths
Two download sinks in crawl4ai/async_crawler_strategy.py:
- HTTP crawler (
AsyncHTTPCrawlerStrategy): the filename is parsed from the responseContent-Dispositionheader by_extract_filename()and written viaaiofiles.open(filepath, 'wb'). Reachable directly via the SDK, and via the unauthenticated Docker/crawlendpoint when anHTTPCrawlerConfigis supplied. - Browser crawler (
AsyncPlaywrightCrawlerStrategy): the download'ssuggested_filename(controllable by the visited page) is joined todownloads_pathand written viadownload.save_as().
The HTTP-strategy sink is reachable pre-auth on the default Docker deployment; both are reachable for SDK users simply by crawling an attacker-controlled URL. The default Playwright crawl path that does not trigger a download is unaffected.
Impact
Arbitrary file write with attacker-controlled content as the user running the crawler, escalating to remote code execution.
Fix
Both sinks now resolve the destination through a single hardened helper (_safe_download_filepath) that reduces the attacker-influenced name to a bare basename (dropping absolute paths and .. components) and re-checks, via realpath, that the resolved path stays inside the downloads root (defeating symlink/TOCTOU escapes). A traversal attempt is rejected; normal downloads are unchanged.
Workarounds
- Upgrade to the patched version (0.9.0).
- Run the crawler as an unprivileged user with a dedicated, isolated downloads directory on a volume with no sensitive paths writable.
- Enable authentication (
CRAWL4AI_API_TOKEN) on the Docker server.
Credits
Y4tacker - reported the Content-Disposition path traversal in the HTTP crawler with a clear PoC and a basename + realpath-containment fix recommendation.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | crawl4ai | all versions | 0.9.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for crawl4ai. 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 crawl4ai to 0.9.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-2jq4-q6vv-4cp3 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 GHSA-2jq4-q6vv-4cp3 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 GHSA-2jq4-q6vv-4cp3. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-2jq4-q6vv-4cp3 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-2jq4-q6vv-4cp3 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.