CVE-2026-55540: PraisonAI: [Path Traversal] agent tools escape the configured workspace via symlinks
PraisonAI’s praisonai.code tool wrappers (exported as CODE_TOOLS for agents) expose a workspace setting that the module itself treats as a path-traversal security boundary — read_file, write_file, apply_diff, and search_replace explicitly call is_path_within_directory() and return "… is outside the workspace" on violations. That boundary is enforced unsoundly and inconsistently:
- The containment helper uses
os.path.abspath(), notrealpath()/Path.resolve(). A symlink located inside the workspace whose target is outside has anabspath()that is still inside the workspace, so it passes the check whileopen()follows the link. This bypasses read, write, apply_diff, and search_replace (CWE-59). list_files()resolvespathagainst the workspace but never calls the containment helper at all —../and absolute paths escape directly (CWE-22).execute_command()takes aworkspaceargument documented “for security validation” but performs nocwdcontainment check;code_execute_command()resolves a relativecwdagainst the workspace and also never validates it (and never even passesworkspaceto the low-level helper). A relativecwd="../outside"runs commands from outside the workspace (CWE-22). An attacker who can influence an agent that has these tools attached (untrusted prompt, indirect prompt injection, or a server-exposed agent) can read, overwrite, list, and execute from outside the configured workspace, bounded only by the process user’s filesystem permissions.
References
Code Behaviors & Features
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