GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8

GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8 is a medium-severity path traversal vulnerability in graphifyy (pip), affecting versions >= 0.7.2, < 0.9.70. It is fixed in 0.9.70.

Does this CVE actually affect you?

Kodem shows which CVEs are reachable and running in your applications, so you fix what's exploitable, not just what's listed.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Runtime intelligence, not another scanner.

Summary

Graphify Fortran extractor: incomplete cpp #include hardening allows arbitrary host-file read/exfiltration when indexing an untrusted repo

The Fortran extractor's C-preprocessor step (graphify/extractors/fortran.py, _cpp_preprocess) applies an incomplete #include hardening. The -nostdinc -I /dev/null flags it relies on (comment "Security (F-007)") do not stop a capital-F Fortran source file from including absolute paths (#include "/etc/passwd") or from path-traversing out of the corpus (#include "../../../../home/victim/.ssh/id_rsa"). cpp always searches the directory of the file being preprocessed for quoted includes and always honours absolute include paths, regardless of -nostdinc/-I. As a result, indexing an untrusted repository that contains a .F/.F90/.F95/.F03/.F08 file reads arbitrary local files off the host and inlines their contents into the knowledge graph, which is then shipped to the LLM/agent and written to the on-disk, shareable output (graph.json, GRAPH_REPORT.md, the Obsidian wiki, HTML/SVG exports).

This is the exact "corpus-side file-exfiltration vector" the F-007 comment says it is defending against; the mitigation is bypassable.

Severity

High. Arbitrary local-file read on the host, triggered by graphify's core action (indexing an untrusted folder, "turn any folder of code ... into a queryable knowledge graph"), defeating a documented security control. It runs on the default, offline, no-API-key AST path (graphify update . / graphify extract), no credentials, network, or LLM call required. CWE-73 (external control of file name/path) / CWE-22 (path traversal) / CWE-200 (information exposure).

Where

graphify/extractors/fortran.py, _cpp_preprocess():

result = subprocess.run(
    ["cpp", "-w", "-P", "-nostdinc", "-I", "/dev/null", str(path.resolve())],
    capture_output=True, timeout=30,
)

Reached from extract_fortran() (same file) for any suffix in _FORTRAN_CPP_EXTS = {".F", ".F90", ".F95", ".F03", ".F08"}, which are collected by default (detect.CODE_EXTENSIONS) and dispatched by extract._DISPATCH.

Why the mitigation does not work

-nostdinc only removes the standard system include directories, and -I /dev/null only sets the additional search path. Neither affects:

  1. Absolute includes, #include "/etc/passwd" is opened directly by cpp.
  2. Quoted includes relative to the current file, cpp always searches the directory containing the file being preprocessed for #include "...", so #include "../../../../etc/shadow" traverses out of the corpus.

Proof of concept (verified)

Reproduced against the shipped code with the exact command _cpp_preprocess builds (cpp -w -P -nostdinc -I /dev/null <file>), and against extract_fortran() directly.

Secret on disk (/tmp/secret.txt): TOP_SECRET_...

(a) Absolute include, evil_abs.F90:

program evil
#include "/absolute/path/to/secret.txt"
end program evil

(b) Relative traversal, evil_rel.F90:

program evil
#include "../secret.txt"
end program evil

Both produce preprocessed output containing the full secret file contents ("SECRET IN OUTPUT: True" for both).

Surfacing into the graph, leak.F90 places the include in an identifier position via a free-form continuation so the leaked value becomes a node/edge:

module m
contains
subroutine s
use &
#include "/path/to/token.secret"
end subroutine s
end module m

extract_fortran() on this file emits a node whose label is the entire single-line contents of token.secret and an imports edge to it. That node is written to graph.json / GRAPH_REPORT.md / the wiki and returned by the MCP query_graph / get_node / get_neighbors tools, i.e. exfiltrated into the agent's context and into persisted, shareable artifacts.

Fidelity note: Fortran is case-insensitive, so captured identifiers are lower-cased. Case-insensitive secrets (file paths, hostnames, usernames, hex tokens, connection-string fragments, and the mere existence/partial content of a readable file) leak cleanly; high-entropy case-sensitive blobs (base64/JWT) are partially corrupted by the lower-casing but still confirm readability and structure. Single-token-per-line secret files (API-key files, single-line credential/token files) leak that token in full (lower-cased). Requires cpp/gcc on PATH (near-ubiquitous on the dev/CI hosts graphify targets); it cleanly falls back to raw bytes when absent.

Detected by

Aeon vuln-scanner. Semgrep flagged the Fortran subprocess path; manual review of the F-007 mitigation plus an empirical cpp repro confirmed the bypass.

Impact

Input manipulates file paths to reach files outside the intended directory, such as configuration or credential files. Typical impact: unauthorized file read or write outside the intended directory.

Affected versions

graphifyy (>= 0.7.2, < 0.9.70)

Security releases

graphifyy → 0.9.70 (pip)

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.

Already deployed Kodem?

See it in your environmentNew to Kodem? Get a demo →

Remediation advice

Mirror the containment approach already used elsewhere in the codebase (_project_xml_is_safe, security.validate_graph_path): before invoking cpp, scan the source for #include directives and refuse or neutralise any include whose target is absolute or resolves outside the corpus/repo root. Concretely, in _cpp_preprocess:

  • Parse #include "..." / #include <...> directives.
  • Resolve each target against the file's directory; if it is absolute, or its .resolve() escapes the scan root, strip that line (or fall back to path.read_bytes() with no preprocessing).
  • Only allow includes that resolve to a path inside the corpus root.

A blunter but safe alternative is to strip all #include lines before preprocessing (macros still expand; cross-file includes lose fidelity but no host files can be read). Running cpp inside a filesystem sandbox (bwrap/unshare with only the corpus mounted) would also close it but is heavier.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What is GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8? GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8 is a medium-severity path traversal vulnerability in graphifyy (pip), affecting versions >= 0.7.2, < 0.9.70. It is fixed in 0.9.70. Input manipulates file paths to reach files outside the intended directory, such as configuration or credential files.
  2. Which versions of graphifyy are affected by GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8? graphifyy (pip) versions >= 0.7.2, < 0.9.70 is affected.
  3. Is there a fix for GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8? Yes. GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8 is fixed in 0.9.70. Upgrade to this version or later.
  4. Is GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8 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
  5. What actually determines whether GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8 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.
  6. How do I fix GHSA-PCC4-RVHR-2PR8? Upgrade graphifyy to 0.9.70 or later.

Stop the waste.
Protect your environment with Kodem.