CVE-2026-43940 HIGH

CVE-2026-43940: electerm: Path traversal in electerm runWidget leads to arbitrary code execution

Vendor Electerm
Product electerm
Weakness CWE-22 · Path traversal
Published May 8, 2026
Last update May 8, 2026

CVSS base score

8.4/10
Attack vector Local
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality High
Integrity High

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

What the vulnerability does

01Description

electerm is an open-sourced terminal/ssh/sftp/telnet/serialport/RDP/VNC/Spice/ftp client. Prior to version 3.7.16, the runWidget function in src/app/widgets/load-widget.js constructs a file path by directly concatenating user‑supplied widget identifiers without any sanitisation. Because runWidget is exposed to the renderer process via an asynchronous IPC handler with no input validation, an attacker who achieves JavaScript execution inside the renderer (for example, through a malicious plugin or a cross‑site scripting flaw in the built‑in webview) can abuse a path traversal (../) to load and execute an arbitrary JavaScript file anywhere on the victim’s filesystem. This gives the attacker local code execution with the full privileges of the electerm process, leading to complete system compromise. This issue has been patched in version 3.7.16.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

May 8, 2026 CVE published
May 8, 2026 Record updated