GHSA-q2pw-xx38-p64j is a low-severity (CVSS 3.3) Path Traversal vulnerability in chainguard.dev/melange. A fix is available for chainguard.dev/melange — see the affected versions and patch details below.
melange has Path Traversal via .PKGINFO in --persist-lint-results
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 GHSA-q2pw-xx38-p64j.
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-q2pw-xx38-p64j 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 378,567 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
chainguard.dev/melangeReal-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
Impact
melange lint --persist-lint-results (opt-in flag, also usable via melange build --persist-lint-results) constructs output file paths by joining --out-dir with the arch and pkgname values read from the .PKGINFO control file of the APK being linted. In affected versions these values were not validated for path separators or .. sequences, so an attacker who can supply an APK to a melange-based lint/build pipeline (e.g. CI that lints third-party APKs, or build-as-a-service) could cause melange to write lint-<pkgname>-<pkgver>-r<epoch>.json to an arbitrary .json path reachable by the melange process. The written file is a JSON lint report whose content is partially attacker-influenced. There is no direct code-execution path, but the write can clobber other JSON artifacts on the filesystem. The issue only affects deployments that explicitly pass --persist-lint-results; the flag is off by default.
Patches
Fixed in melange v0.43.4 by validating arch and pkgname for .., /, and filepath.Separator before path construction in pkg/linter/results.go (commit 84f3b45).
Workarounds
Do not pass --persist-lint-results when linting or building APKs whose .PKGINFO contents are not fully trusted. Running melange as a low-privileged user and confining writes to an isolated directory also limits impact.
Credits
melange thanks Oleh Konko (@1seal from 1seal.org) for discovering and reporting this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | chainguard.dev/melange | ≥ 0.32.0&&< 0.43.4 | 0.43.4go get chainguard.dev/melange@v0.43.4 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for chainguard.dev/melange, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update chainguard.dev/melange to 0.43.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-q2pw-xx38-p64j 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 GHSA-q2pw-xx38-p64j can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-q2pw-xx38-p64j. 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-q2pw-xx38-p64j in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-q2pw-xx38-p64j across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.