CVE-2026-96612: high-severity vulnerability in hexpm hex
Path traversal in Hex via unvalidated dependency app names
Published · Updated
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21Vexday Risk Score
No sign of exploitation. No public exploitation artifact known so far.
ssvc Trackcvss 7.5epss 0.4%
Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in hexpm hex allows a malicious package publisher to delete a directory outside the project's deps directory and extract package files into it when a developer fetches dependencies.
A package release's requirements carry an app label that names the dependency's OTP application. Hex takes this label from the repository's signed registry and uses it as the dependency's application name without validating it (Hex.RemoteConverger.deps/2, Hex.Mix.to_lock/1). Mix derives the dependency's checkout directory as deps/<app>, and Hex.SCM.update/1 runs File.rm_rf!/1 on that directory and unpacks the package into it. hex.pm only checks the label's length, so a publisher can set it to a value such as ../../target. When a project depends on such a release directly or transitively, mix deps.get or mix deps.update deletes the directory the label resolves to and writes the labelled package's files there. This happens before any dependency code is compiled.
This issue affects hex: from 0.6.0 before 2.5.2.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Affected products
hexpm · hexRelated CVEs — hexpm hex
In the same product, most dangerous first.
CVE-2026-21619LOWUnsafe Deserialization of Erlang Terms in hex_coreEPSS 0.6%CVE-2026-105274LOWhex_core decompresses registry and Erlang term API responses without size limitsEPSS 0.4%CVE-2026-81856LOWTerminal escape sequence injection in Hex via unneutralized server-supplied outputEPSS 0.4%CVE-2026-105668HIGHHex release-age cooldown is lifted package-wide when the locked release is retiredEPSS 0.4%CVE-2026-96618LOWHex exhausts memory and disk on oversized or compressed responses from an untrusted mirrorEPSS 0.4%CVE-2026-96596MEDIUMerl_tar:extract/2 loops forever on a GNU sparse member with a trailing holeEPSS 0.2%
References
https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-96612.htmlhttps://github.com/hexpm/hex/commit/1b3e2ae8f0dd7273a2c2625b9e50b6c67c8568fbhttps://github.com/hexpm/hex/commit/380f87054e1bc08ee13d2b5311bc01f98dad2fc6https://github.com/hexpm/hex/commit/72279a8e2004b32b20d8767ff010c117193dd02chttps://github.com/hexpm/hex/security/advisories/GHSA-2vjj-c5hr-6xc3https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-96612