UnratedPublic exploit

Path Traversal in Kestra local internal-storage backend

IdentifiersCVE-2026-49984CWE-22

CVE-2026-49984 is a path traversal vulnerability in Kestra's local internal-storage backend affecting versions prior to 1.0.45 and 1.3.23. The backend validates user-supplied paths for directory traversal sequences before normalizing Windows-style backslashes to forward slashes. Because of this incorrect order of operations, an attacker can supply traversal input such as '..\..\..\' that bypasses the initial validation check, then is rewritten to '../../../' immediately before file access. An authenticated user with only the ability to view an execution can exploit the issue via GET /api/v1/{tenant}/executions/{executionId}/file?path=... to read arbitrary files accessible to the Kestra process outside the intended storage sandbox. The flaw breaks tenant and namespace isolation in multi-tenant deployments.

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation allows arbitrary file read on the underlying server as the Kestra process user. According to the provided details, this can expose the embedded H2 database containing flows, users, and stored secrets; internal storage belonging to other tenants and namespaces; mounted secret files; and process environment data such as /proc/self/environ containing configured database and secret-backend credentials. The result is a complete compromise of Kestra's storage isolation and multi-tenancy boundary, enabling cross-tenant data exposure and likely follow-on compromise through credential theft.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If immediate upgrade is not possible, reduce exposure by restricting access to the vulnerable file retrieval endpoint, limiting low-privilege authenticated access to execution-view functionality, and avoiding use of the local internal-storage backend where feasible. Run Kestra with the least filesystem privileges possible, prevent access to sensitive host paths and secret mounts, and isolate tenants at the infrastructure level to reduce cross-tenant impact. These are compensating controls only; patching is required to fully address the issue.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade Kestra to version 1.0.45, 1.3.23, or later, where the vulnerability is fixed. The underlying remediation is to normalize path separators before traversal validation and ensure file access is constrained to the intended storage root after canonicalization.

PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

No public exploits tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.

VALID 0 / 0 TOTALView more in app

No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.

ACTIVITY FEED

Recent activity

8 sources tracked across advisories and community write-ups. News coverage will land here when it surfaces.

8 SOURCESView more in app

No news coverage yet. Advisories and community discussion only.

What this page doesn’t show

The version that knows your environment.

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Exposure mapping

Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.

Threat actor evidence

Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.

Associated malware

Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.

Detection signatures

YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

Vendor-by-vendor mapping

Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity8

Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.

EXTERNAL REFERENCES

MITRE CVE

cve.org · CVE-2026-49984

NVD

nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-49984

MITRE CWE · CWE-22

cwe.mitre.org