Summary
plone.app.portlets Vulnerable to Remote Code Execution via TALES Injection
Workarounds
If upgrading is not immediately possible:
- Restrict who can manage portlets: remove the
plone.app.portlets.ManageOwnPortletspermission from untrusted roles, and limit Manage portlets to trusted administrators (usually this is already restricted to the Manager and Site Administrator roles). - Where the Classic portlet is not needed, unregister it so it cannot be added. This would need to be done by editing a
portlets.xmlin your own code, so it is not a quick fix. - You could also effectively disable showing the classic portlet by customising its template. In the Zope Management Interface go to the
portal_view_customizationstool, locate theclassic.pttemplate and click it. Click the Customize button. Remove all text and replace it with<div>The classic portlet was disabled.</div>. (This is not a recommended way of customising a template, but in this case it is quite effective.)
Credits
Discovered by Giuseppe Caruso, and reported to the Plone/Zope Security Team. Thanks!
Impact
The Classic portlet (plone.app.portlets.portlets.classic) used its user-supplied template/macro fields to build a TALES path expression that was then evaluated by the TAL path() helper. Because the value was interpreted as a full TALES expression, a user able to add or edit a Classic portlet could supply a crafted value that escapes simple path traversal and is evaluated as arbitrary code.
This is exploitable by any authenticated user who can configure a Classic portlet - which, with the default role map, includes regular users on their personal dashboard. The result is code execution in the context of the Plone process, i.e. a privilege escalation across the trust boundary between an authenticated web user and the server-side process.
CVE-2026-57149 has a CVSS score of 9.9 (Critical). The vector is network-reachable, 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 (7.0.2, 6.0.4, 5.0.8); 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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See it in your environmentNew to Kodem? Get a demo →Remediation advice
The problem has been patched in plone.app.portlets
- For Plone 6.2, upgrade to
plone.app.portlets7.0.2. - For Plone 6.1, upgrade to
plone.app.portlets6.0.4. - For Plone 6.0, upgrade to
plone.app.portlets5.0.8.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2026-57149? CVE-2026-57149 is a critical-severity security vulnerability in plone.app.portlets (pip), affecting versions >= 7.0.0, <= 7.0.1. It is fixed in 7.0.2, 6.0.4, 5.0.8.
- How severe is CVE-2026-57149? CVE-2026-57149 has a CVSS score of 9.9 (Critical). 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 versions of plone.app.portlets are affected by CVE-2026-57149? plone.app.portlets (pip) versions >= 7.0.0, <= 7.0.1 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-57149? Yes. CVE-2026-57149 is fixed in 7.0.2, 6.0.4, 5.0.8. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2026-57149 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2026-57149 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-2026-57149 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-2026-57149?
- Upgrade
plone.app.portletsto 7.0.2 or later - Upgrade
plone.app.portletsto 6.0.4 or later - Upgrade
plone.app.portletsto 5.0.8 or later
- Upgrade