Ouroboros: Remote Code Execution via Untrusted Project-Directory .env
- Published
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Fix
- Fixed in 0.39.0
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
- Exploitation: none
- Automatable: no
- Technical impact: total
Summary
Ouroboros is a local-first runtime for AI coding agents that records their actions and applies user-defined policies to constrain behavior. In versions prior to 0.39.0, if a user clones a malicious repository and runs Ouroboros commands within that directory, it can lead to arbitrary code execution and potential system takeover. The vulnerability stems from Ouroboros loading the .env file from the current working directory. Execution-affecting environment variables such as OUROBOROS_CLI_PATH, OPENCODE_CLI_PATH, and other backend selectors are accepted directly from this local .env. An attacker can include a malicious script in the repository and point the CLI path variable to it (e.g., OUROBOROS_CLI_PATH=./malicious_script.sh). When the user executes a command like ouroboros init or any command that instantiates the adapter, the malicious script is executed instead of the intended CLI. This issue has been fixed in version 0.39.0.
Timeline
- CVE published
- CISA SSVC assessment
Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
- Record last updated
Affected versions
- Q00 ouroboros
fixed in 0.39.0
- ouroboros-aiPyPI
fixed in 0.39.0