Environment variables and secrets are interpolated into a Twig template even when the Twig sandbox is enabled, allowing them to be leaked by an authenticated attacker.
The Craft vulnerability CVE-2026-31857 was only patched by applying sandboxed Twig templating. This theoretically protects Craft CMS against RCE attacks, provided the sandbox is enabled and secure, with no known bypasses.
However, the same request parameter elementId, which allows for sandboxed Twig templates to be rendered, also includes functionality that interpolates referenced environment variables. If the parameter includes a string of the form ${ENV_VAR} then the string is replaced with the environment variable or secret from a secrets file with that name.
Afterward, the string is rendered as a Twig template. If the sandbox is disabled, Twig templates can already gain RCE or access environment variables using the getenv function. Sandboxed Twig templates should not have this access, but now do thanks to this additional environment-variable replacement behavior.
The template’s resulting value is not directly reflected in the response. To exfiltrate the value, the sandboxed Twig template cannot use network functions. But it can use a blind error-based approach similar to blind SQL injection. With enough requests, any environment variable or secret can be incrementally leaked. This can be abused to forge a session, escalate privileges with the CRAFT_SECURITY_KEY, and steal credentials for the database, SMTP server, or other connected APIs or blob storage.
An authenticated attacker, with permission to access the control panel, can render a malicious Twig template and steal arbitrary environment variables and secrets with a large number of requests, even if the Twig sandbox is enabled through enableTwigSandbox().
| Software | From | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
craftcms / cms
|
5.0.0-RC1 | 5.10.6 |
craftcms / cms
|
4.0.0-RC1 | 4.18.2 |
A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.
A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.
Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.
Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.
SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.