CVE-2026-39977 HIGH

CVE-2026-39977: flatpak-builder has a path traversal leading to arbitrary file read on host when installing licence files

Vendor Flatpak
Product flatpak-builder
Weakness CWE-22 · Path traversal
Published April 9, 2026
Last update April 9, 2026

CVSS base score

7.1/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

flatpak-builder is a tool to build flatpaks from source. From 1.4.5 to before 1.4.8, the license-files manifest key takes an array of paths to user defined licence files relative to the source directory of the module. The paths from that array are resolved using g_file_resolve_relative_path() and validated to stay inside the source directory using two checks - g_file_get_relative_path() which does not resolve symlinks and g_file_query_file_type() with G_FILE_QUERY_INFO_NOFOLLOW_SYMLINKS which only applies to the final path component. The copy operation runs on host. This can be exploited by using a crafted manifest and/or source to read arbitrary files from the host and capture them into the build output. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.4.8.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

April 9, 2026 CVE published
April 9, 2026 Record updated