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Fencer Intel
medium 4.3

CVE-2026-85272 json

Open edX Platform: Path traversal via prefix-bypass in safe_extractall Path Validation

published 3mo ago modified last mo. also EUVD-2026-83399 , GHSA-6cmm-8875-5pcw

Unreviewed: the maintainers' own advisory

Published by the maintainers on their GitHub repository openedx/openedx-platform. GitHub has not reviewed it into the GitHub Advisory Database, so the affected packages and versions are the maintainers' word. Read the full advisory on GitHub.

cvss
4.3
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 41%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Open edX Platform enables the authoring and delivery of online learning at any scale. From Aspen.1 until Ulmo and Verawood.1, openedx/core/lib/extract_archive.py uses _is_bad_path to validate safe_extractall targets by comparing resolved path strings with startswith instead of comparing path components. A course author or staff user with course import permission can submit a crafted .tar.gz archive through the import_olx flow initiated by cms.djangoapps.contentstore.views.import_export.import_handler. An archive member can therefore escape into a sibling course staging directory whose name shares the attacker's base64 directory prefix, causing limited cross-tenant file corruption. Zip archives are not practically affected because ZipFile.extractall strips parent traversal segments, and the advisory does not establish arbitrary filesystem writes, file reads, or direct code execution. This issue is fixed in Ulmo and Verawood.1.

Patch / fix

Is CVE-2026-85272 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
last mo.

Exploit prediction

0.48% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 41% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 4.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Affected products

  • openedx openedx-platform

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

The maintainers of openedx/openedx-platform published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.