CVE-2026-50021

The package manager pnpm prior to version 9.15.0 mishandles overrides and global cache. Overrides from one workspace leak into npm metadata saved in global cache, potentially leading to unauthorized code execution in other workspaces.

pacquet, the Rust package-manager component shipped in the pnpm npm package versions >=12.0.0-alpha.0 and <12.0.0-alpha.5, does not validate dependency alias/name paths taken from a lockfile before using them in install-time filesystem joins. When a user installs a project with an attacker-supplied lockfile using --trust-lockfile or a frozen lockfile, alias entries containing path traversal segments (for example '../../escaped-link') are used when creating dependency and package links, bin destinations, hoisted entries, and virtual-store slots, allowing symlinks and directories to be created outside the intended project and node_modules boundary. Version 12.0.0-alpha.5 validates dependency names and every virtual-store slot path with a shared safe-join containment helper before any filesystem materialization, rejecting traversal, absolute, platform-specific, and reserved names with ERR_PNPM_INVALID_DEPENDENCY_NAME.

pnpm versions 11.0.0 before 11.11.0 and 10.7.0 before 10.34.5 expand ${VAR} environment-variable placeholders in the httpProxy, httpsProxy, and noProxy settings read from a project's pnpm-workspace.yaml. Because the manifest is repository-controlled and the proxy keys were omitted from the request-destination key set that otherwise suppresses placeholder expansion for untrusted manifests (as already done for registry, pnprServer, registries and namedRegistries), an attacker who controls a repository's pnpm-workspace.yaml can cause a victim who clones the repository and runs a pnpm command (e.g. pnpm install) to expand environment secrets such as NPM_TOKEN or GITHUB_TOKEN into a proxy hostname or userinfo and route install traffic — and the corresponding DNS lookups — through an attacker-controlled host. The exfiltration occurs during configuration loading, before any lifecycle script executes. Fixed in pnpm 11.11.0 and 10.34.5.

pnpm before versions 10.34.5 and 11.11.0 accepts a scoped path traversal in the package name in a tarball dependency's package.json manifest. During installation, this can lead to package extraction outside node_modules and overwriting arbitrary filesystem paths, even when --ignore-scripts is used.

pnpm before versions 10.34.5 and from 11.0.0 until 11.11.0 parses package names from attacker-controlled pnpm-lock.yaml keys without validation, which can lead to package contents being written outside node_modules during installation. If lifecycle scripts are allowed, this can enable code execution.

In the pnpm package manager prior to versions 10.34.4 and 11.7.0, a crafted lockfile alias could be placed directly under a hoisted node_modules directory. Traversal aliases could escape that directory, while reserved aliases such as .bin or .pnpm could overwrite pnpm-owned layout.

pnpm before versions 10.34.4 and 11.8.0 accepts package names from the configDependencies section of pnpm-lock.yaml and uses them directly when creating config dependency symlinks under node_modules/.pnpm-config. A malicious repository can supply a crafted lock file containing a traversal-shaped config dependency name, leading to symlink creation outside the intended directory.

In pnpm prior to versions 10.34.4 and 11.7.0, a crafted patch entry could resolve outside the configured patches directory, allowing arbitrary file deletion via the pnpm patch-remove command.

The pnpm package manager from version 11.3.0 to 11.5.3 has a vulnerability where the `pnpm stage download` command derived a local filename from registry-controlled package name and version fields. A crafted manifest could escape the selected download directory and overwrite another reachable file.

In pnpm prior to versions 10.34.2 and 11.5.3, a vulnerability was discovered where manifest bin object keys such as "", ".", and ".." passed pnpm's bin-name guard. When a malicious package was installed globally, later global remove, update, or add-replacement flows could re-derive those names from the installed manifest and pass path.join(globalBinDir, binName) to removeBin. For "." this targets the global bin directory; for ".." this targets its parent.