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VulnerabilityPublished

CVE-2026-118938: trailofbits fickling · Use of Incorrectly-Resolved Name or Reference

Affects trailofbits ficklingSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.8 High.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 21:51 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score
8.8High
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

Thin evidence

One scorer or none
CVSS scores by source
CNA (BombadilSystems)CVSS 3.18.8
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 30 Oct 2026

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponized: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq 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 30 Oct 2026.

What to do

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
trailofbitsficklingAffected
  • <=0.1.12
Fixed in–
PyPIficklingpkg:pypi/ficklingOther threatsAffected
  • <=0.1.12
Fixed in–

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

AI-suggested

Users should avoid loading untrusted pickle data with fickling.load() until a fix is released. The vendor's recent blocklist and heuristic improvements do not mitigate this issue. Monitoring vendor advisories for updates and applying any future patches promptly is recommended.

Description

Trail of Bits fickling versions up to 0.1.12 contain a vulnerability where a pickle STACK_GLOBAL operand with a dotted __qualname__ is incorrectly resolved to an arbitrary attribute path instead of a module-level function. This flaw allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code by loading a crafted pickle that reaches the optparse.Values.read_file method, which executes code from a file. The vulnerability bypasses fickling's safety checks because the trailing attribute reference is not analyzed or flagged. The issue remains unpatched as of the latest vendor commit on 2026-10-30.

References

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