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GHSA-763v-5pjm-fx36 json

Strands Agents: Default FileSessionManager storage is world-readable on shared systems

published last mo. modified 15d ago

cvss
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not scored
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
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no score, EPSS covers CVEs only
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

There is a local confidentiality issue in the default `FileSessionManager` storage behavior. By default it writes session data under `/tmp/strands/sessions` and relies on the process umask for directory and file permissions. On systems using the common `umask 022`, the session directories are `0755` and JSON files are `0644`, so other local users can read persisted agent session data.

This matters on shared developer machines, CI hosts, notebooks, jump boxes, and multi-user GPU servers. Session storage is intended to persist conversation/history/state, so it can contain prompts, model output, tool inputs/outputs, intermediate state, and secrets that pass through the agent.

Relevant code: - `strands-py/src/strands/session/file_session_manager.py:58`: default storage path is `os.path.join(tempfile.gettempdir(), "strands/sessions")`. - `strands-py/src/strands/session/file_session_manager.py:118`: creates parent directories without a private mode. - `strands-py/src/strands/session/file_session_manager.py:121`: writes JSON files via normal `open(..., "w")`. - `strands-py/src/strands/session/file_session_manager.py:131`: creates session directories without a private mode.

Local reproduction with `umask 022`:

```text default_storage_dir= /tmp/strands/sessions 0o755 /tmp/strands/sessions 0o755 /tmp/strands/sessions/session_codex_perm_poc 0o644 /tmp/strands/sessions/session_codex_perm_poc/session.json file_contains_secret= True ```

The fixture wrote a fake secret into the session dict to show that sensitive session fields are readable through the resulting file.

Suggested fixes: - Use a private per-user data directory by default rather than `/tmp`, or create `/tmp/strands` and descendants with `0700`. - Write session JSON atomically with `0600` permissions. - Consider refusing to use an existing default storage directory if it is not owned by the current user or is group/world accessible. - Document that callers should set `storage_dir` explicitly when they need shared storage.

This was reproduced on commit `dd7b41de38cb`.

Patch / fix

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Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi strands-agents
<1.48.0
1.48.0

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-276 Incorrect Default Permissions

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 strands-agents/harness-sdk published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.