GHSA-vx9w-5cx4-9796 — crawl4ai
HIGHGHSA-vx9w-5cx4-9796 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.6) Path Traversal vulnerability in crawl4ai. A fix is available for crawl4ai — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Crawl4AI Has Local File Inclusion in Docker API via file:// URLs
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- 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-vx9w-5cx4-9796.
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-vx9w-5cx4-9796 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 379,145 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
A local file inclusion vulnerability exists in the Crawl4AI Docker API. The /execute_js, /screenshot, /pdf, and /html endpoints accept file:// URLs, allowing attackers to read arbitrary files from the server filesystem.
Attack Vector:
POST /execute_js
{
"url": "file:///etc/passwd",
"scripts": ["document.body.innerText"]
}
Impact
An unauthenticated attacker can:
- Read sensitive files (/etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, application configs)
- Access environment variables via /proc/self/environ
- Discover internal application structure
- Potentially read credentials and API keys
Workarounds
- Disable the Docker API
- Add authentication to the API
- Use network-level filtering
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | crawl4ai | all versions | 0.8.0pip install --upgrade 'crawl4ai==0.8.0' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for crawl4ai, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update crawl4ai to 0.8.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-vx9w-5cx4-9796 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-vx9w-5cx4-9796 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-vx9w-5cx4-9796. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
How to detect GHSA-vx9w-5cx4-9796
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id ghsa-vx9w-5cx4-9796 -u https://target- Template
- Crawl4AI < 0.8.0 - Local File Inclusion
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Unauthenticated remote attackers can read sensitive files, exposing credentials, API keys, and internal application details.
- Remediation
- Update to version 0.8.0 or later.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (str4k3r, Aryu-RU), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-vx9w-5cx4-9796 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-vx9w-5cx4-9796 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.