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consciousness-explorer / sublinear-time-solver MCP export_state has an arbitrary file write

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jun 14, 2026 in ruvnet/sublinear-time-solver • Updated Aug 25, 2026

Package

npm consciousness-explorer (npm)

Affected versions

< 1.1.2

Patched versions

1.1.2
npm sublinear-time-solver (npm)
< 1.6.0
1.6.0

Description

Impact

An arbitrary file write vulnerability (CWE-73, External Control of File Name or Path) exists in the consciousness-explorer component of sublinear-time-solver. The MCP export_state (and import_state) tool accepted a user-supplied filepath argument and passed it directly to fs.writeFileSync / fs.readFileSync without constraining the destination or rejecting path traversal. An attacker able to invoke the MCP tool could write or overwrite any file accessible to the server process (e.g. ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, application files), leading to integrity loss and potential service disruption.

The same sink class was present in the main solver MCP server (saveVectorToFile / loadVectorFromFile).

Affected versions

  • consciousness-explorer < 1.1.2
  • sublinear-time-solver < 1.6.0
  • sublinear (crates.io) < 0.2.0

Patches

  • consciousness-explorer@1.1.2
  • sublinear-time-solver@1.6.0
  • sublinear@0.2.0

State/vector files are now confined to a dedicated directory (overridable via $CONSCIOUSNESS_EXPLORER_STATE_DIR / $SUBLINEAR_SOLVER_VECTOR_DIR), a basename-only contract is enforced (rejecting separators, .., NUL/control chars, hidden files, and Windows reserved names), and files are opened with O_NOFOLLOW | O_CLOEXEC mode 0o600. Covered by 14 regression tests in tests/consciousness/safe-path.test.mjs.

Breaking change: callers must now pass a basename, not an absolute path.

Workarounds

Do not expose the MCP server to untrusted clients; restrict export_state to trusted local users; run the server under a low-privilege account with a restricted working directory.

References

@ruvnet ruvnet published to ruvnet/sublinear-time-solver Jun 14, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Aug 25, 2026
Reviewed Aug 25, 2026
Last updated Aug 25, 2026

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

EPSS score

Weaknesses

External Control of File Name or Path

The product allows user input to control or influence paths or file names that are used in filesystem operations. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-55609

GHSA ID

GHSA-xc9g-j69q-37xw

Source code

Credits

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