CVE-2026-43998

vm2: NodeVM require.root bypass via symlink traversal allows sandbox escape

At a glance

Severity: HIGH 8.5
EPSS: EPSS 0.72 % · percentile 54 (2026-10-28)
State: PUBLISHED
Published: 2026-05-13
Updated: 2026-09-07
Assigner: GitHub_M
NVD status: Modified

Description

vm2 is an open source vm/sandbox for Node.js. In 3.10.5, NodeVM's require.root path restriction can be bypassed using filesystem symlinks, allowing sandboxed code to load modules from outside the allowed root directory in host context. Because path validation uses path.resolve() (which does not dereference symlinks) but module loading uses Node's native require() (which does), an attacker can load arbitrary host-realm modules and achieve remote code execution. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.11.0.

Scores

Version	Score	Vector	Scored by
CVSS 3.1	HIGH 8.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H	GitHub_M
CVSS 3.1	HIGH 8.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H	redhat-SADP
CVSS 3.1	HIGH 8.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H	NVD · security-advisories@github.com (Secondary)
CVSS 3.1	HIGH 8.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H	NVD · 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c (Secondary)

Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE-59

Advisories

GHSA-cp6g-6699-wx9c — vm2 has a NodeVM require.root bypass via symlink traversal that allows sandbox escape

European references

ENISA EUVD · EUVD-2026-30068
GCVE · GCVE-0-2026-43998

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.10.5:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*

Affected products

Product	Versions
patriksimek · vm2	affected 3.10.5

References

Sources

Source	Licence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)	CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)	FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVD	ENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feeds	Public domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD