Summary
Tauri's Updater Private Keys Possibly Leaked via Vite Environment Variables
Workarounds
The envPrefix: ['VITE_'],should be used and the desired TAURI variables manually added.
Respective these variables could be added TAURI_PLATFORM, TAURI_ARCH, TAURI_FAMILY, TAURI_PLATFORM_VERSION, TAURI_PLATFORM_TYPE and TAURI_DEBUG without leaking sensitive information.
We urge affected users to implement the workaround as the 1.x branch will not receive a general prevention fix as it would break systems.
References
The issue was originally disclosed in our discord here.
The affected guide is https://tauri.app/v1/guides/getting-started/setup/vite/.
Update: We lowered the severity from high to low, as the likelihood of impact was found to only affect a very limited amount of applications.
Update2: We changed the affected versions to make clear that after 2.0.0-alpha.16 or 1.5.6 the potentially vulnerable recommendation was no longer visible on our website and should not affect projects by default. A lot of users were confused and we believe this advisory reached the necessary user base.
Impact
This advisory is not describing a vulnerability in the Tauri code base itself but a commonly used misconfiguration which could lead to leaking of the private key and updater key password into bundled Tauri applications using the Vite frontend in a specific configuration.
The Tauri documentation used an insecure example configuration in the Vite guide to showcase how to use Tauri together with Vite.
Copying the following snippet envPrefix: ['VITE_', 'TAURI_'], from this guide into the vite.config.ts of a Tauri project possibly leads to bundling the TAURI_PRIVATE_KEY and TAURI_KEY_PASSWORD into the Vite frontend code and therefore leaking this value to the debug built of a Tauri application.
The value is automatically bundled into debug builds but for production builds it is not embedded, as long as it is not directly referenced in the frontend code. Vite statically replaces these values in production builds. This reduces the amount of affected applications to a very small amount of affected applications.
To verify if you are affected you can search for the private key value or the TAURI_PRIVATE_KEY variable inside the release build frontend assets (dist/).
Example: grep -r "TAURI_PRIVATE_KEY" dist/
Using only the envPrefix: ['VITE_'], or any other framework than Vite means you are not impacted by this advisory.
CVE-2023-46115 has a CVSS score of 8.4 (High). The vector is requires local access, low privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (2.0.0-alpha.16, 1.5.6); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
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The documentation has been patched but as the root cause is not in Tauri itself the issue is not fixed by updating Tauri.
The vite.config.ts configuration of the project needs to be adapted.
We recommend rotating your updater private key if you are affected by this (requires Tauri CLI >=1.5.5). After updating the envPrefix configuration, generate a new private key with tauri signer generate, saving the new private key and updating the updater's pubkey value on tauri.conf.json with the new public key. To update your existing application, the next application build must be signed with the older private key in order to be accepted by the existing application.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2023-46115? CVE-2023-46115 is a high-severity security vulnerability in tauri-cli (rust), affecting versions >= 2.0.0-alpha.0, < 2.0.0-alpha.16. It is fixed in 2.0.0-alpha.16, 1.5.6.
- How severe is CVE-2023-46115? CVE-2023-46115 has a CVSS score of 8.4 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
- Which packages are affected by CVE-2023-46115?
tauri-cli(rust) (versions >= 2.0.0-alpha.0, < 2.0.0-alpha.16)@tauri-apps/cli(npm) (versions >= 2.0.0-alpha.0, < 2.0.0-alpha.16)
- Is there a fix for CVE-2023-46115? Yes. CVE-2023-46115 is fixed in 2.0.0-alpha.16, 1.5.6. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2023-46115 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2023-46115 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2023-46115 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
- How do I fix CVE-2023-46115?
- Upgrade
tauri-clito 2.0.0-alpha.16 or later - Upgrade
@tauri-apps/clito 2.0.0-alpha.16 or later - Upgrade
@tauri-apps/clito 1.5.6 or later - Upgrade
tauri-clito 1.5.6 or later
- Upgrade