Medium

nextflow auth login command has incorrect default permissions

  • Disclosed: 25.06.2026
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 12:22

Impact

nextflow auth login persists Seqera Platform OIDC tokens to ${NXF_HOME:-~/.nextflow}/seqera-auth.config. The file is created via Java NIO without specifying file permissions, so under the default umask 022 it lands at mode 0644 (world-readable).

On a multi-user POSIX host — typically an HPC login node, shared workstation, or jump host — any local user able to traverse the victim's home directory can read the file and obtain a valid Platform bearer token, enabling impersonation against Seqera Platform within the token's scope.

Single-user systems and headless CI runners, which do not invoke the interactive login flow, are not affected.

Affected versions: 25.09.2-edge through 26.04.1.

Patches

Fixed in <PATCHED_VERSION>. The patched code applies mode 0600 to seqera-auth.config immediately after writing it, and re-applies on every subsequent login so any pre-existing world-readable copy left by an earlier version is tightened.

Tokens previously stored in the file must be treated as disclosed. After upgrading, run nextflow auth logout, revoke the token in the Seqera Platform UI, and run nextflow auth login again.

Workarounds

Restrict the file and its parent directory:

chmod 600 "${NXF_HOME:-$HOME/.nextflow}/seqera-auth.config" chmod 700 "${NXF_HOME:-$HOME/.nextflow}"

Alternatively, supply the Platform token via the TOWER_ACCESS_TOKEN environment variable instead of running nextflow auth login.

References

Affected software

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PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Java / Kotlin (Maven) io.nextflow:nextflow >= 25.09.2-edge, < 25.10.6, >= 26.00.0-edge, < 26.04.3 25.10.6, 26.04.3

References

CVSS score 5.5/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-276, CWE-732
Platform
Java / Kotlin (Maven)
Package
io.nextflow:nextflow
Disclosed
25.06.2026
Updated
11.10.2026 12:22

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-92qf-fcph-v5wr - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: io.nextflow:nextflow

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

This is the only known vulnerability of this package.

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