VulnerabilityPublished 2 Jul 2025

CVE-2025-53358: Cinnamon kotaemon · Path Traversal

Affects Cinnamon kotaemonSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium · fixed in 0.10.7 : update Cinnamon kotaemon when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 12:55 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 39% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 0.10.7

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: None
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 2 Jul 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHubcinnamon/kotaemon`pkg:github/cinnamon/kotaemon`Other threats	Affected <=0.10.6	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

European organizations should immediately assess their use of kotaemon and identify any instances running version 0.10.6 or earlier. The primary mitigation is to upgrade to version 0.10.7 or later once the patch is publicly available. Until then, organizations should implement strict input validation and sanitization controls on any user-supplied paths or URLs processed by kotaemon to prevent directory traversal sequences. Network-level protections such as firewall rules and segmentation should restrict access to the kotaemon service to trusted users and systems only. Monitoring and logging of file access patterns can help detect anomalous attempts to access sensitive files outside expected directories. Additionally, sensitive environment files and configuration data should be protected with appropriate filesystem permissions and, where possible, isolated from the application runtime environment. Organizations should also consider deploying runtime application self-protection (RASP) or web application firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block path traversal payloads targeting kotaemon endpoints. Finally, maintaining an inventory of open-source components and timely patch management processes will reduce exposure to similar vulnerabilities.

Description

kotaemon is an open-source RAG-based tool for document comprehension. From versions 0.10.6 and prior, in libs/ktem/ktem/index/file/ui.py, the index_fn method accepts both URLs and local file paths without validation. The pipeline streams these paths directly and stores them, enabling attackers to traverse directories (e.g. ../../../../../.env) and exfiltrate sensitive files. This issue has been patched via commit 37cdc28, in version 0.10.7 which has not been made public at time of publication.

Impact

For European organizations using kotaemon versions 0.10.6 or earlier, this vulnerability poses a significant risk of sensitive data leakage. Since kotaemon is a tool for document comprehension, it may be deployed in environments handling confidential documents, intellectual property, or personal data subject to GDPR regulations. Unauthorized access to environment files or configuration data could expose credentials, API keys, or other secrets, potentially leading to further compromise or data breaches. The confidentiality breach could result in regulatory penalties, reputational damage, and operational disruption. Given the network-exploitable nature of the flaw, attackers could remotely target vulnerable deployments without requiring user interaction, increasing the risk of automated scanning and exploitation attempts once the vulnerability becomes widely known. However, the lack of known active exploits and the requirement for some level of privileges may limit immediate widespread impact. Organizations relying on kotaemon in critical document processing workflows should prioritize remediation to avoid data exfiltration risks.

CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #6OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks…
Implementation · Input Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Path Traversal (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic (opens in a new tab)
Manipulating Web Input to File System Calls (opens in a new tab)
Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 2 Jul 2025, 16:09 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-22

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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