CVE-2026-23986

Copier safe template has arbitrary filesystem write access via directory symlinks when _preserve_symlinks: true

State
Published
Severity
6.9 Medium
Published
Jan 21, 2026
Updated
Jan 22, 2026
Reserved
Jan 19, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

Copier is a library and CLI app for rendering project templates. Prior to version 9.11.2, Copier suggests that it's safe to generate a project from a safe template, i.e. one that doesn't use unsafe features like custom Jinja extensions which would require passing the `--UNSAFE,--trust` flag. As it turns out, a safe template can currently write to arbitrary directories outside the destination path by using directory a symlink along with `_preserve_symlinks: true` and a generated directory structure whose rendered path is inside the symlinked directory. This way, a malicious template author can create a template that overwrites arbitrary files (according to the user's write permissions), e.g., to cause havoc. Version 9.11.2 patches the issue.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
4.06.9 MediumCVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:NGitHub_M

Weaknesses

  • CWE-61 UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following

Affected Products

ProductVersions
copiercopier-org
  • < 9.11.2Affected

References

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