[SECURITY] [v0.1.0] Path traversal in extension installation allows arbitrary file writes #53522

Activity

1. Atlas (atlas-cortex)

   added

   invalidThis doesn't seem rightThis doesn't seem right

   on May 10, 2026
2. atlas-cortex commented on May 10, 2026

   

   Atlas (atlas-cortex)

   on May 10, 2026

   More actions

   ❌ Validation Summary — Issue #53522

   Code verification failed: The bug report describes a path traversal vulnerability during the installation of VSIX extensions. However, Cortex does not support VSIX extensions or have an automated extension installation mechanism that extracts archives. The project uses WASM plugins which are installed manually. Therefore, the described vulnerability is not applicable to this codebase.

   Confidence Score: 5/5

   • High confidence — multiple spam indicators triggered.

   Validation Checks

   Check	Status	Detail
   Media Evidence	❌ Fail	No screenshot or video attached
   Spam Detection	❌ Fail	Score: 70% — template or auto-generated content detected
   Duplicate Detection	✅ Pass	No significant overlap with existing issues
   Code Verification	❌ Fail	Bug not found in source code (confidence: 100%) — screenshots invalid — The bug report describes a path traversal vulnerability during the installation
   LLM Evaluation	❌ Fail	Code verification failed: The bug report describes a path traversal vulnerability during the installation of VSIX extens...

   Action Items

   • Ensure the bug report describes a real command/feature in Cortex
   • Verify that the described behavior matches the actual code
   • Provide screenshots showing actual CLI output, not source code

   Validation Pipeline

   %%{init: {'theme': 'neutral'}}%%
   flowchart TD
       A["Issue #53522"] --> B{"Media Check"}
       B -->|"No media"| Z["❌ Invalid"]
       style Z fill:#ff6b6b,color:#fff
   

   Loading

   Raw Evidence

   {
     "media": {
       "hasMedia": false,
       "accessible": false,
       "urls": [],
       "evidence": [
         "No media URLs found in issue body"
       ]
     },
     "spam": {
       "overallScore": 0.703763440860215,
       "details": "template=0.27 (5 recent issues compared); burst=1.00 (6 issues in 2h window); parity=0.00; overall=0.41 (threshold=0.7); llm_spam=1.00 (The issue lacks visual evidence (screenshots or videos), which is a strict requirement for a valid submission. Furthermore, the report does not provide clear, actionable steps to reproduce the vulnerability, nor does it describe the expected versus actual behavior. It only provides a conceptual proof of concept without instructions on how to execute it within the application. Due to the missing evidence and lack of reproducible steps, the issue is invalid.)"
     },
     "duplicate": {
       "isDuplicate": false,
       "similarity": 0.4160042944636507,
       "topSimilar": [
         {
           "issueNumber": 52683,
           "title": "[BUG] [v0.0.7] **`cortex github install`**: **`--workflow-name`** path traversal — **write outside** **`.github/workflows/`**",
           "similarity": 0.4160042944636507
         },
         {
           "issueNumber": 50814,
           "title": "[BUG] [v0.0.7] `cortex github install --workflow-name` allows path traversal and writes outside `.github/workflows`",
           "similarity": 0.4106820430986948
         },
         {
           "issueNumber": 51254,
           "title": "[BUG] [v0.0.7] plugin install: enforce plugin directory boundaries and reject unsafe paths",
           "similarity": 0.39751776261766336
         },
         {
           "issueNumber": 52519,
           "title": "[BUG] [v0.0.1] agent install accepts path-traversal names without validation — writes agent file outside agents directory",
           "similarity": 0.3938827864986735
         },
         {
           "issueNumber": 52545,
           "title": "[BUG] [v0.0.7] `cortex agent install <name>` joins `args.name` into the agents path without rejecting `..` or path separators — can write outside the agents directory",
           "similarity": 0.39037381042837194
         }
       ]
     },
     "codeVerification": {
       "plausible": false,
       "confidence": 1,
       "reasoning": "The bug report describes a path traversal vulnerability during the installation of VSIX extensions. However, Cortex does not support VSIX extensions or have an automated extension installation mechanism that extracts archives. The project uses WASM plugins which are installed manually. Therefore, the described vulnerability is not applicable to this codebase.",
       "codeEvidence": "The codebase does not contain any references to \"VSIX\" files or \"Extension installation\". Plugins in Cortex are installed manually by copying WASM files to `~/.cortex/plugins/`, as documented in `src/cortex-plugins/src/sdk.rs`. There is no archive extraction logic that could be vulnerable to path traversal during plugin/extension installation.",
       "screenshotValid": false,
       "screenshotReasoning": "No screenshots were provided in the bug report to verify the user experience."
     }
   }

   _{Validated by Atlas • 2026-05-10}
3. Atlas (atlas-cortex)

   closed this as completedon May 10, 2026